People seem to need something to rally behind and experience some kind of brotherhood/togetherness. Like religion.
And the more you antagonize their group (or they have a rival belief) the more radical they become 🤷‍♂️

Dominus wrote on 2021-10-16, 11:03:

People seem to need something to rally behind and experience some kind of brotherhood/togetherness. Like religion.

I always say: The closer you become with the people from 'your own group', the more distant you become from everybody else.
That's how their line of thinking seems to stray from reason.

And the more you antagonize their group (or they have a rival belief) the more radical they become 🤷‍♂️

This is also true, but actually somewhat understandable even if only from an emotional perspective. I imagine them trying to counterweigh the (then often for them) over-emotional weight of the counter-arguments. They perceive it as an emotional argument (because of their stupidity or for whatever reason) and the only thing they see is how this has to be compensated in some way. That and they must feel thrilled when they see how their own 'family' is supplying them (if you know what I mean with supplying (and I'm not talking about a fysical kind of supply)).
It's really what groupthink is about.

Some people might try to instigate such an over-emotional respons by trying stuff like flamebaiting and/or trolling. And if the troll notices he or she is not getting the wanted over-emotional respons, they keep trying and try to increase the pressure which can really derail any kind of rational dialogue if only because of the often vast amount of textual pollution other readers have to scroll through 😜

It's really quite an interesting subject for me to think about, if only because of its seeming omnipresence which makes it hard to try to live without.

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-10-16, 10:14:

keenerb wrote on 2021-10-16, 10:09:

I dont know if there's ever ever been an opinion more opposed to the very spirit of Vogons than "right to repair should be illegal."

Very Old Games On Newer Systems
😜

which doesn't really change anything, as getting old software to run on new systems requires the same basic premises.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-10-16, 11:01:

And stuff like fans of 2 rivalling soccer clubs organising a meeting near a highway where they would bash each others heads

Oi, dat ozer munke tribe sayz dey bettar zan us. Letz beat dem skullz and show'em whoz da rial bozz 'ere.

Yep...

Well lets just say that back then I had already started disliking this whole world build around this sport. But I can safely say that this was really the final nail in the coffin for me. I was done with this bs and I never looked back.

Tetrium wrote on 2021-10-16, 10:43:

This does however remind me of something which has been kinda bugging me for a while now and that's that there was a thread here on Vogons for to show your games collection, but once someone showed some pics and stories of some games which were not PC games the OP changed the title to include only IBM compatible games and then went a little ranty about it which I thought was kinda frowning. I always thought that was kind of a dick move especially since there probably aren't that many non-PC games collections here on Vogons anyway.

Your remark is relevant and I had never noticed that here. There is a thread called [Console & Arcade Emulation] but there is a very few talking about console hardware in [General Old Hardware]. None I have seen talking about consoles software from a collection PoV.
A 80486 PC is just an old hardware, as is a SEGA Mega Drive, a PDP-10, a HP-35, a SONY Betamax SL-C7 or whatever else. They are just old electronic stuff with some being digital, some being analogue, some being a mix of both. And with some working with a software to drive them in the form of interchangeable media storage.
One can find an interest only in a particular machine, one other can love a category of machines over a given period and one other can just love everything because it's a fan of electronic in general. Who can tell he is the one who is right and the rest are just stupid people who don't understand the Truth?

Unfortunately, there is people who are close-minded. They do not accept different opinions and don't recognize other rules than theirs. It's impossible to talk and reason such people, but fortunately, for now, they are more like a bad SNR on a still working fine hardware, we can measure the noise and know it's there, but the signal is still stronger.
And for a community like Vogons to work, there need to be rules and they exist, Terms of use:[ucp.php?mode=terms] and they just need to be respected. Most of the time they are though, cg. the age of the service and the number of actual users.
And if they are not, sanctions must be applied... Maybe there is work to do here by recruiting moderators. Because in no case someone have to be rejected because he "Think different".

Well lets just say that back then I had already started disliking this whole world build around this sport.

It's called tribalism and it's inherent to human psyche due to out ancestry. Smart people use that in politics to promote their agenda, especially in nationalist oriented groups.

my 2 €cents

Right to Repair, you always have that, no one can take it away from you. It is not illegal . ever .
though there are some catches when you want to use that self-repaired device in some circumstances, like official or regulated activities.
Personal use is no problem unless it somehow starts interfering with the neighbours tv reception...

Now, Right to spare parts... that's a tricky one
Manufacturers would like you to buy a new device, so they can phase out the old devices and no longer have to support them nor keep inventory for spare parts, etc...
Manufacturers also would like to maximize their profits, which leads to the crazy situations where spare parts cost the same as a new device or repair centers charge the same as a new device.
Don't forget the middlemen also need to eat.

Should they be regulated by government to sell them at what the parts value truly is and not just the plain material cost that some people seem to stumble over.

People who like to repair things themselves often run into this roadblock where some parts aren't available due to "intellectual property", patents, software copyright, etc.
The manufacturers of those parts are bound by contracts to not release any of these parts since they themselves were subcontracted by the manufacturer of the device.
Even though sometimes those parts are any different from commercially available parts from other manufacturers and the only thing that is different is some factory set configuration bits.

...

there 'nuf for now.

People who like to repair things themselves often run into this roadblock where some parts aren't available due to "intellectual property", patents, software copyright, etc.

Yes, right to repair is also getting tricky due increasing entanglement with software part. Copyright needs to be scaled down in certain aspects.

Datadrainer wrote on 2021-10-16, 11:32:

Your remark is relevant and I had never noticed that here. There is a thread called [Console & Arcade Emulation] but there is a […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2021-10-16, 10:43:

This does however remind me of something which has been kinda bugging me for a while now and that's that there was a thread here on Vogons for to show your games collection, but once someone showed some pics and stories of some games which were not PC games the OP changed the title to include only IBM compatible games and then went a little ranty about it which I thought was kinda frowning. I always thought that was kind of a dick move especially since there probably aren't that many non-PC games collections here on Vogons anyway.

Your remark is relevant and I had never noticed that here. There is a thread called [Console & Arcade Emulation] but there is a very few talking about console hardware in [General Old Hardware]. None I have seen talking about consoles software from a collection PoV.
A 80486 PC is just an old hardware, as is a SEGA Mega Drive, a PDP-10, a HP-35, a SONY Betamax SL-C7 or whatever else. They are just old electronic stuff with some being digital, some being analogue, some being a mix of both. And with some working with a software to drive them in the form of interchangeable media storage.
One can find an interest only in a particular machine, one other can love a category of machines over a given period and one other can just love everything because it's a fan of electronic in general. Who can tell he is the one who is right and the rest are just stupid people who don't understand the Truth?

Unfortunately, there is people who are close-minded. They do not accept different opinions and don't recognize other rules than theirs. It's impossible to talk and reason such people, but fortunately, for now, they are more like a bad SNR on a still working fine hardware, we can measure the noise and know it's there, but the signal is still stronger.
And for a community like Vogons to work, there need to be rules and they exist, Terms of use:[ucp.php?mode=terms] and they just need to be respected. Most of the time they are though, cg. the age of the service and the number of actual users.
And if they are not, sanctions must be applied... Maybe there is work to do here by recruiting moderators. Because in no case someone have to be rejected because he "Think different".

I'm only going to comment on a portion of what you're trying to convey here at first:
The console stuff I perhaps I can understand?
I wasn't around at the very start of Vogons though, I'm pretty sure one of the really ancient (and hopefully not completely fossilized 😜 ) veterans can convey a more accurate answer about this 😀
This site was always about emulation and having the old hardware itself to test with etc really helps in this regard.
But this was also a non-profit thingy, basically people trying to tinker with emulators, trying to get favorable results in their spare time I guess 😜
But when it came to tinkering with hardware, PC hardware is the kind of hardware that has probably the largest amount of games available for it, a vast array of old parts 'needing' to be emulated correctly and tons of exceptions to otherwise standard hardware/software rules along with old PCs (back then at least) being perhaps the most accessible due to the modular design of PCs and the (back then) low prices and wide variety of hardware components.

When I started reading here, this site was above all, about tinkering I guess. Tinkering with old stuff, hardware and software. And there's simply less to tinker with when it comes to consoles and Apples with most of the older Computers used for gaming (like arcade machines and most of the lesser known (to the general public) types of computers, with Compiters like Amiga and Atari being amongst the types that are probably the most well known of these otherwise relatively more unknown types of systems) being less accessible for a variety of reasons.

And when you put a bunch of people together who like to tinker with this stuff, when you put a lot of brains together, something beautiful starts brewing (I mean just look at all the projects that saw the light of day here and sites like VCF (I mean XT-IDE is a perfect example of what was imo a really important hurdle that was solved, imo, even though that one afaik did not even originate from Vogons)). The knowledge of emulating kinda resulted in the accumulation of a lot of people who liked playing older games and ended up using older computers for this purpose.
Also the vast amounts of data gathered and the amount of expertise is imo (part of) what makes Vogons great. The knowledge and the people and the data and the files, all being available and (re)searchable.
A natural step from there is the accumulation of vast amounts of hardware which only later looked more like a collection (I do know the difference between someone who has parts to use as spare parts and someone who wants the parts to put into a glass showcase etc). Imo the collectors don't contribute as much in this regard if only because it is less about tinkering, less about thinking.
Tinkering kinda requires being open minded.
Learning is part of the way to gather more knowledge and knowing when to apply that. It's not about being wrong or right but about improving yourself and improving your opinion (to learn when you are wrong and improvehow you perceive the world, kinda like how I improved when I saw that Northwood wasn't too bad or more recently when I turned out to be wrong about early Pentium non-MMX CPU multipliers).
Just collecting hardware you're never even gonna use and only store for money and the hype, less so.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that with regards of consoles, the proprietary stuff like ROMs is also a bit of a hurdle (copyrights etc) which is easier to circumvent on PCs, for several reasons.

I have a pair of googles for my motorcycle helmet. It's elastic band degrades over time, so instead of buying a new pair of googles I asked my Mom to replace the elastic band with her sewing machine. By some people's standard, this action makes my Mom a criminal. 🙄

dormcat wrote on 2021-10-16, 14:46:

I have a pair of googles for my motorcycle helmet. It's elastic band degrades over time, so instead of buying a new pair of googles I asked my Mom to replace the elastic band with her sewing machine. By some people's standard, this action makes my Mom a criminal. 🙄

Imaging all the surgeons going against the will of god/nature ! 😁

Attention, user. You have violated terms of EULA. Copyright Cyborg Security Task force will be shortly dispatched to your location for termination of your life signs. Please stay where you are and have a nice day!

keenerb wrote on 2021-10-16, 10:16:

We are in the old hardware forum though.

imi wrote on 2021-10-16, 11:17:

which doesn't really change anything, as getting old software to run on new systems requires the same basic premises.

It was meant as a joke. I didn't mean to step on any toes. Sorry if I did.
Preventing repairs on hardware certainly goes against the spirit of Marvin and is a bad thing all around.

I guess I belong to a minority of people who have no desire to be a member of ANY group. I look at people that pick up a banner and promptly lose their ability for rational thought. I look at all this tribal flag waving and just wonder WHY.

Maybe Ted kaczynski wasn't so crazy.... (obviously he was, but I UNDERSTAND why someone might have had his motivations)

We're moving towards 'hardware as a service' where nobody actually 'owns' anything and all of 'your' gadgets and gizmos are really just leased from the manufacturer, with various rules and restrictions on how they can be used.

luckybob wrote on 2021-10-16, 17:35:

I guess I belong to a minority of people who have no desire to be a member of ANY group. I look at people that pick up a banner and promptly lose their ability for rational thought. I look at all this tribal flag waving and just wonder WHY.

Maybe Ted kaczynski wasn't so crazy.... (obviously he was, but I UNDERSTAND why someone might have had his motivations)

Too late! You are a member of Vogons!

Great topic and great replies ! Hahaa yes we are all members of something, even if only the human race 😁

Back in mid 90's working at an authorized OEM (for 2 PC brands) and general PC repair center we had some come in with Power Macs wanting more ram, added/bigger drive, etc and though we were not "Apple" certified we always did what we could and usually had the same exact memory and scsi drive parts as the Apple stores and repair centers (no supply chain issues back then). Those customers we helped were always so relieved to get the upgrades for much less than the "authorized" centers of the time.

Errius wrote:

We're moving towards 'hardware as a service' where nobody actually 'owns' anything

It's called rentism. One of the bleak possible futures where classic governments are just a facade and corporations are acting like new feudal lords. Although that's slightly brighter than typical cyberpunk dystopian future.

luckybob wrote:

Maybe Ted kaczynski wasn't so crazy...

Kaczynski points out flaws of technocratic society, driven by profit, quite accurately. Unfortunately, his solution to problem will at best only lead to Dark Ages 2.0, with inevitable return back to where we are now, and at worst to complete extinction of human society.

Dominus wrote:

Too late! You are a member of Vogons!

You can make a religion out of this!

Dominus wrote on 2021-10-16, 18:29:

Too late! You are a member of Vogons!

So, where do I buy the flag I need to wave?

I've spent a decade on this site, and that brun guy is the first I've taken the effort to mute. Its people like him that made me leave the 68kmla site. Those people are 1 batch of kool-aid away from Heaven's Gate...

Errius wrote on 2021-10-16, 18:00:

We're moving towards 'hardware as a service' where nobody actually 'owns' anything and all of 'your' gadgets and gizmos are really just leased from the manufacturer, with various rules and restrictions on how they can be used.

We are moving towards everything as a service...

But to speak about personal computers, many criticize Apple, but the fact is a lot a big computer manufacturers since the 90's are making proprietary hardware. Look at Commodore with the PCIII or HP for what I know well: custom motherboard with custom power supply and connectors and rebadged components.
Taking the example of laptops PCs because this was mentioned previously. Today the new trend is to forbid access to the internal mass storage, the battery and sometime the RAM and make the computer very difficult to disassemble with a lot of screws and clips and short wires connected on very fragile connectors. And they provide replacement parts or repairs for only 4 to 6 six years at a very maximum.
Again, most manufacturers do not copy Apple. Apple chose to use chips with unique ID to forbid fixes, they also chose to solder almost everything on the motherboard. None other to my knowledge is doing that for now. But what they do is trying to close things because when doing so, they gain control on their products and people continue to buy. It can reduce their costs too because removing moving parts means less parts, that without changing the price. Normally when there is a void, it fills up quickly. And apparently, today they make no void doing that, only a shift. That means most people don't really care about repairability. From a manufacturer point of view, it's always the same. How can they take the market? They create attractive technologies they want to become the norm to sell licenses but at the end the market decide, they do not decide the market. What business partners and clients wants? They give that to them. For the rest they do what they want the way they want.
Now, the right to repair... That's also the right to mod it. Why something like that should exist? You buy an item, it's yours now. You do what you want with it. If it's still cover by the warranty. Well, you lose it in the worst case.
Like software through cloud services, imagine that tomorrow computer hardware will exists as a service. You pay a monthly fee to use it. Its a rental, you cannot alter the product because it's not yours. You pay to use it, not to own it. If it came to be the norm that mean there will be a void. The PC is open from the time it was cloned. Since the end of the 90's we have seen online cloud gaming services to appear, a decade latter there was GOG. If things take the direction HaaS, I think that will be the same. When there is a market, there is a product. Two examples, open source mobile phones and micro controllers, two niche markets. For the first, only a few of not very powerful but very pricey products and a low demand. For the seconds, in no time they where successful and are used today for a lot of things with a high demand and relatively low prices. So the question is: Will the demand for an open, normalized and customizable PCs be high or low? To conclude, if you are a collector, you want to possess the product. If you are a basic consumer, you want access the service given by the product. Which lead to the second question that answer partly the first: Will there be enough collectors to make a viable market?