You should build a crystal radio receiver if you really want to get something down to the bare minimum.
You can even make an FM receiver, but need to be pretty close to a strong station to receive it. AM or FM, it's just like *magic* that it's powered by the very radio station it's tuned to.

AlaricD wrote:

You should build a crystal radio receiver if you really want to get something down to the bare minimum.

I have 😀 Forgot to mention old radios!

To me it's kind of the opposite, actually.

IBM PC started as a motherboard that only had CPU/FPU sockets, RAM sockets, ISA slots and an AT keyboard connector, basically. Everything else needed to be a separate add-on card. Many functions of a modern PC started out as a separate card: disk/CD-ROM controllers, Gameport cards, 3D accelerators, MPEG decoders and so on.

Individual PC parts often started as a mess of chips and then got more and more integrated — compare early behemoth 386 boards to later tiny ones with soldered-on AMD 386DX40 chips. Or sound cards — think original Sound Blasters vs late Vibra with basically a single chip, AWE32 vs AWE64 and so on.

So to me PC started as something huge and complicated and got tinier and "simpler" with time — even if that means that individual chips got a lot more complicated.

This is probably the reason why I keep coming back to 486/VLB builds — kind of the last "fully disintegrated" generation, even though it's not the most practical platform for retrogaming. Most things are done by a separate card that you can tweak or upgrade to your liking. A lot of high-end cards are close to full-length, so "bigger" often means "better" — compare an AWE32 or a GUS to a small AdLib clone, or a typical Cirrus Logic VLB videocard to a low-profile Trident ISA card. Compare Tekram disk controllers that had their own RAM slots to cheap GoldStar multi I/O cards.

I still think parts are simple (more so today than in 199x). It's just the usual OS is overboard with the bloat these days needing hundreds of 'services' etc... I don't have to keep a bag of jumpers with my PCs in ages or think about cache modules/chips or how to layout SCSI/IDE ribbons or *shudder* replacing AT PSUs...

leileilol wrote:

I still think parts are simple (more so today than in 199x). It's just the usual OS is overboard with the bloat these days needing hundreds of 'services' etc... I don't have to keep a bag of jumpers with my PCs in ages or think about cache modules/chips or how to layout SCSI/IDE ribbons or *shudder* replacing AT PSUs...

The useless bloat on current OS is something that cannot be understated... it's a shame that instead of using the power of new hardware to move towards a more "instantaneous" experience we still have to deal with issues like loading times and useless stuff running in the background. I'd honestly prefer a more basic look and feel in trade for better performance.

keenmaster486 wrote:

making each of those components only as complicated as necessary.

I try and do this with everything in my life to some degree and it gets me in trouble sometimes - mostly with other people when I take it too far 😢

I throw household items out, remove extraneous components from household items, and generally try to "keep things simple". And I think this is what I love about my old computers - I can refine to my hearts content and it's of no consequence to anyone in the world but me.

TheMobRules wrote:

leileilol wrote:

I still think parts are simple (more so today than in 199x). It's just the usual OS is overboard with the bloat these days needing hundreds of 'services' etc... I don't have to keep a bag of jumpers with my PCs in ages or think about cache modules/chips or how to layout SCSI/IDE ribbons or *shudder* replacing AT PSUs...

The useless bloat on current OS is something that cannot be understated... it's a shame that instead of using the power of new hardware to move towards a more "instantaneous" experience we still have to deal with issues like loading times and useless stuff running in the background. I'd honestly prefer a more basic look and feel in trade for better performance.

If you look into a lot of that "useless stuff", it is not really all that useless. However, there is the problems of a lot of programs installing stuff like auto-updaters in the background as well as some having other junk auto-load when Windows starts up.

keenmaster486 wrote:

I think maybe it all boils down to reductionism and minimalism. Here's how: in my mind, there's something very beautiful about reducing a computer to its essential components and then making each of those components only as complicated as necessary.

I don't know exactly why, but there's just something beautiful about that concept.

Two words: SET amp and single-driver loudspeakers. Well that's six, but you know what I mean.

Vintage computer hardware aren't always minimalistic, though.

Two words:
electrostatic speakers

Goes with another pair of words:
open baffle

Simplicity is definitely why I like old cars. Not sure it's a factor in why I like old computers though.

TheMobRules wrote:

The useless bloat on current OS is something that cannot be understated... it's a shame that instead of using the power of new hardware to move towards a more "instantaneous" experience we still have to deal with issues like loading times and useless stuff running in the background. I'd honestly prefer a more basic look and feel in trade for better performance.

This is a gripe I always run into whenever I boot Linux. The GUIs that are "advanced" enough for me to find them usable are slow and won't even keep up with keyboard inputs.

One of the things that I appreciate about the true-to-era machines (or close enough to era) is that I either had machines very much like these when I was a kid, or wanted them when I was a kid.

There's something about using a machine that was physically from the era you remember, vs emulating it. Don't get me wrong, emulation is awesome, and in most cases, a lot easier than breaking out the original machine and dealing with all the problems of compatibility/speed/and ugh drivers

My biggest regret is how much stuff I've thrown away or recycled over the years that would be worth a fortune now with today's eBay prices 🤣. As many here I've developed a little bit of a fever which I need to learn to tame. When you want machines from a bunch of different eras, it stops being such a cheap hobby

keenmaster486 wrote:

AlaricD wrote:

You should build a crystal radio receiver if you really want to get something down to the bare minimum.

I have 😀 Forgot to mention old radios!

Good luck! 😉 Medium wave transmitters were shut-down a while ago (in some parts of EU, I know at least). Long wave ist still alive, though.

Long wave still alive? Good Lord. In the USA, long wave went completely dead a long time ago, and medium wave has been kept sort of alive by talk radio (no music any more 😢 )

Our new FCC chairman has plans to "revitalize" the 530-1700 kHz band by moving all those stations to an extended portion of the FM band. Brilliant, isn't it? How wonderful. Thanks, Ajit. That'll get people to listen to AM.

What really needs to be done is open up the AM band to low power, local stations. Or, better yet, move forward with the "revitalization" plan and then allocate the 530-1700 kHz area for low power radio only, with automatic licensing and separation rules enforced by an independent board.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Long wave still alive? Good Lord. In the USA, long wave went completely dead a long time ago, and medium wave has been kept sort of alive by talk radio

Last time I checked (and that was last year), Warsaw (Poland) radio was still transmitting at 225 kHz.

Jo22 wrote:

keenmaster486 wrote:

AlaricD wrote:

You should build a crystal radio receiver if you really want to get something down to the bare minimum.

I have 😀 Forgot to mention old radios!

Good luck! 😉 Medium wave transmitters were shut-down a while ago (in some parts of EU, I know at least). Long wave ist still alive, though.

With a differently-wound coil and the right air-gap variable capacitor, you can get the shortwave bands, which according to my 1937 GE F-107 radio, are still alive and well. In the USA, medium wave will probably never go away, it propagates well, and reaches those places out in the sticks where in between the talk radio that some can take or leave, they can get breaking news and weather information.

depoliticized post

AlaricD wrote:

With a differently-wound coil and the right air-gap variable capacitor, you can get the shortwave bands, which according to my 1937 GE F-107 radio, are still alive and well. In the USA, medium wave will probably never go away, otherwise Rush Limbaugh would never reach the country bumpkins not wise enough to ignore him.

Have you actually ever even listened to Rush or are you going off of things other people who don't listen to him say about him?

depoliticizing post
It's interesting that what was once the "police band" is now part of the Extended AM band. It was cool picking up a California AM station on an 81-year old radio.

Let's see that iPad, Zune, or Zen Nomad last 81 years (one would think it SHOULD be likely to, I suppose, being solid state).

MOD: Can we not politics? Thanks.

Stiletto wrote:

MOD: Can we not politics? Thanks.

Thank you.

Azarien wrote:

Last time I checked (and that was last year), Warsaw (Poland) radio was still transmitting at 225 kHz.

That's very interesting! How many people listen to that? I don't suppose normal tabletop radios have longwave, even in Poland... or do they?

I love old radios. Nothing is more satisfying than working on those things... Especially the simple AM ones that use the All American Five circuit; they're like the Model A cars of radios. Very easy to work on and fix if you know anything about electronics.