VOGONS


Reply 40 of 74, by probnot

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brostenen wrote:

For me.... Retro is WinXP and newer. Vintage is anything older than XP (2000, 98). Here I am talking about 2001 being the border. Or more fluidly, stuff that were used for gaming in the years 2001/02.

You're making me feel old. I swear I still feel like later WinXP era machines were just a few years ago...

For me, anything PIII or older is retro. I know one day I'll want to play on some P4/C2D era machines though, so I'm saving a few this time 😀

Regarding Retro vs Vintage, I've never really thought about the difference, so I don't really have a strong opinion one way or another.

Reply 41 of 74, by Unknown_K

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Anything multi core or multi threaded is modern to me. Some of that would be obsolete (first MT P4's) but still modern.

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Reply 42 of 74, by Cyrix200+

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leileilol wrote:

Probably the PC99 standard. As soon as ports got colored, that's when it becomes "modern" to me. And then there's the Y2k rush of website corporate dorkery and the brief period of Apple imitation designs....

I agree, PC99 is one of the 'breakpoints' for me also.

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Reply 43 of 74, by clueless1

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clueless1 wrote:

Yeah, some people here have different definitions for "vintage" and "retro". Whatever you call it, my break point is around 2003. Basically, if it's 32-bit, single core, and consumer grade, chances are I consider it retro.

To expand, for some reason, I see the Athlon XP as undoubtedly retro. So by association, the Pentium IV of the same time period. Trying to find a commonality, I think it is single core, single thread, 32 bit. That's my latest cutoff point for what I consider "retro". "Vintage", on the other hand, I'd personally place at 16-bit. So Win3.1, DOS and earlier. That would mean that "retro" goes down to Win95 by my reasoning.

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Reply 44 of 74, by amadeus777999

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Super Socket 7 is the most modern I would let pass as vintage.
It's especially annoying to see the P4 and sometimes even Core2 swim the "old ponds". There is a practicality angle to them though as they might be useful in powering old games like for example Quake/Blood on high res lcds.

Reply 45 of 74, by torindkflt

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For me, there is no "distinct cutoff" between what I consider to be modern and vintage. There is a little bit of hard-to-define overlap, and primarily anything that happens to fall within that overlap will be defined either as "modern" or "not modern" depending on my personal interest in that system.

Also, as many others have mentioned, I don't observe just two categories of computer age/generation. Rather, I tend to recognize at least four, maybe five. As of the date I am posting this (January 4th, 2018), my APPROXIMATE cutoffs for these different categories are as follows, in descending order of age:

ANTIQUE: Anything 8-bit and/or made before approx. 1985, but especially anything from the 70s. This is the "maybe fifth" category I alluded to, since large portions of it can also fall into the "Vintage" category below and this could perhaps be better considered a subset of the "Vintage" category, aside from the 70s systems which could make up their own separate "Antique" category.

VINTAGE: Anything in the 80s to approx. 1994, but can also include systems from the "Antique" category above.

RETRO: Anything 1995 to about 2001 or so. Despite being built in 2003, I would personally consider my first ever custom-build as "retro" because at the time it had specs comparable to systems from 2001.

OBSOLETE: Anything 2002-2012. Basically, computers I consider to be old, but not old enough to be of any interest to me unless they have personal significance or importance (Computers I built or bought myself, or spent a lot of time using at work).

MODERN: 2013 and newer. These are systems I'd be comfortable using as a "daily driver" as long as their base specs are good enough for my needs. Depending on how much they've been upgraded, slightly older systems would be acceptable as "Modern" to me.

Reply 46 of 74, by Mister Xiado

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RETRO - Newly-made in the style of old.

For me, classic is a couple generations behind current. I consider the Win9X era hardware and software to be classic, and everything up to Win7 to be usable for specific purposes, but not necessarily everyday use. Win8 and Win10 are abominations. For game systems, the PS2 and Xbox are borderline. Everything after them is in some undefined gulf of old, but not really classic to me.

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Reply 47 of 74, by nforce4max

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Unlike some here I am not set in stone and enjoy whatever I please, retro and vintage are often personal interpretation anyway until something is really that old though like a 486 ect.

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Reply 48 of 74, by MiniBits

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Vintage hmm, never really put much thought into it but I would say 386 and earlier, then retro is 486-P3 and modern'ish is p4+

I grew up with C64, then my first own PC was a 386sx16 which then grew in stages with more ram, more hdd etc. until finally getting 486 66-80-100-120 until I jumped on to "who knows what" it doesn't shine in my memory and don't really recall it to be honest. But also Voodoo 1 -> Voodoo 2 etc. and gamer weekends every weekend with 2 other friends from school, each weekend we spend in each others places, so every 3 weeks we had been at each friends place and started over.

Reply 49 of 74, by Kadath

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SSTV2 wrote:
Moogle! wrote:

This is, as always a moving goalposts sort of question, but what do you consider the break between vintage and modern hardware?

Personally - the PII era (1997+) is the break point between vintage and modern systems. A PII system has all of the modern system characteristics: ATX standard, DIMM memory, dedicated video bus, USB, integrated sound and so on. You could still install and use Win7 on PII system, while on S5/7 and older systems with SIMM memory, that's basically impossible. True retro stuff (personally) is before PCI era (1993).

Also P4's with DDR memory support are definitely still modern... Snap out of it people.

TOTALLY AGREED - your idea of 'vintage' era is the same of mine - that era is my golden age, and it simply ended with PII - PIII and Win9x, CDRoms and early 3D (still funny, but... different feelings about those).

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Reply 50 of 74, by Gatewayuser200

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For me the newest system I'd consider retro is a 478 Pentium 4 or a 939 Athlon 64 (AGP only & no dual core).

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Reply 51 of 74, by Almoststew1990

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I define retro by "how usable is it today" or "Is there any reason to make this PC other than for its own sake" (as in there are much better, newer alternatives`). I would say Socket 775, SATA, PCI-E, Windows Vista and the slow rise of X64 OS is the start of "modern" computing. When we became more interested in cores rather than GHz, power efficiency rather than melting temperatures and insane Watts, and computer graphics started to get "photo realistic". These systems are very "plug and play". Vintage PCs I would say are 486s.

I am not sure if the "golden age" is early AGP (when you only needed one card for 2D and 3D, and CPUs and GPUs were progressing at an alarming rate), or if it is now. Today PCs are very powerful, the range of games is incredible, we have multiple, larger, higher resolution screens on our desks due to their high screen to size ratio, access to the internet on anywhere and everywhere (a blessing for us adults who don't feel the need to sit glued to social media). The only thing holding me back is privacy, current unusually high costs of pretty much all components and the growth of free to play / microtransactions and adverts across games and even Windows 🙁

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Reply 54 of 74, by Smack2k

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To me, Retro is anything 15 or so years old and before. I dont worry about what type of proc / speed / socket / etc, I just go by how old it is and go from there. That way, I have a TON of options in things to do, all with hardware that isnt available any longer outside ebay and other second hand sources. I enjoy building a 286 as much as I enjoy building AthlonXP systems. For me, its about gathering the newer hardware now before it becomes more scarce and expensive, and at the same time working with the much older hardware to ensure it stays in working order as those items have become more and more expensive to replace.

IN terms of Vintage, I dont put a year or date on vintage. Vintage to me means something memorable that you cant find new very often, if at all, new any longer. The things that were incredible for their time, and were thought of as top of the line, things we wished we had when they were new but couldnt due to costs and other reasons. To make an example with cars, an 84 Ferrari I would consider Vintage, but an 84 Chevette I would not. The Chevette is retro, but not Vintage. Just because its 34 years old doesnt mean its something that was a head turner / grabbed your attention and made you say WOW. That is what Vintage means to me. I consider 3Dfx Voodoo Cards (1 and 2) to be Vintage due to what they did and the impact they had on computers / gaming and how things grew in terms of great 3D from there. I dont consider a Trident card from the same era and even earlier Vintage. Its retro, but not Vintage to me....

Reply 55 of 74, by KCompRoom2000

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The newest systems I'd consider retro are Socket 478 Pentium 4 systems with AGP (or, at the very least, predate the era where PCI-e was around) and AMD Athlon XP (K7) systems.

What I'd place in between retro and modern are later Pentium 4/D systems (either LGA775 or with PCI-e) and AMD Athlon 64 (K8) systems, simply because those are too new to be "retro" IMO but old enough to struggle with most modern day tasks.

To me, modern starts with Core 2s (and AMD CPUs from the same era) running Windows 7+ with 3+ GB of RAM since that combination is still usable for modern day internet browsing and some other tasks.

Reply 56 of 74, by jheronimus

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I think «retro» kind of stops with 486 with VLB. Basically that is the last platform that is similar to the original PC: everything (IDE, serial ports, etc) needs an expansion card, Turbo button works (though there are Pentiums that have that too), lots of jumpers. After that motherboards got increasingly more integrated.

I don't know the distinction between "retro" and "vintage", but I don't collect anything post Pentium 3 — my systems really need to have a proper ISA slot. Retro builds with Pentium 4 and later kind of confuse me — I don't really see the point.

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Reply 59 of 74, by cyclone3d

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jheronimus wrote:

I think «retro» kind of stops with 486 with VLB. Basically that is the last platform that is similar to the original PC: everything (IDE, serial ports, etc) needs an expansion card, Turbo button works (though there are Pentiums that have that too), lots of jumpers. After that motherboards got increasingly more integrated.

I don't know the distinction between "retro" and "vintage", but I don't collect anything post Pentium 3 — my systems really need to have a proper ISA slot. Retro builds with Pentium 4 and later kind of confuse me — I don't really see the point.

What about Slot-A and Socket-A? There are a lot of those with ISA slots.

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