TrashPanda wrote on 2022-10-18, 05:21:Windows Xp is 21 years old(2001) ...What exactly do you consider old enough to fit the retro tag ? […]
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Ensign Nemo wrote on 2022-10-17, 20:02:For me, a lot of it comes down to how well modern hardware can reproduce the experience. Systems like the C64 can be emulated ve […]
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For me, a lot of it comes down to how well modern hardware can reproduce the experience. Systems like the C64 can be emulated very well, but it doesn't seem the same without the old hardware. Running DOSbox doesn't feel the same as running an old DOS machine. I also have a crt that I can easily hook up to an old computer, but most modern computers don't have the VGA out.
Another thing I need to remind myself is whether or not I'd actually use it. I recently saw a Commodore Pet for $25 come up locally. It looked mint, but it would just sit around my apartment untouched.
There are some systems that still offer features unavailable or rare on modern computers that are worthwhile. In addition to the crt example, the Atari ST is a good example because it has midi out.
The Windows XP era is an interesting case. I have some games that don't run well on Windows 10 that would be perfect on an XP system, but I have a hard time justifying buying an XP computer. The XP experience just doesn't feel retro to me, so I would only buy a system if it is both cheap and small. While some thin clients meet those requirements, I haven't found any with a GPU that meets the requirements that I need. Same goes for laptops from that era.
Windows Xp is 21 years old(2001) ...What exactly do you consider old enough to fit the retro tag ?
Say we take Windows 98 ...its only 3 years older than XP ..how about Windows 95 thats 6 years older than XP, Time is a funny thing and I think some people dont realise that we are now closer to 2050 than we are to 1980, for me anything before Core 2 is old enough to hit that retro tag ..anything before the Pentium 75 is now old enough to be a museum piece.
We could go back even further .. Windows 3.11 is 1993 what makes 93 any more retro than 2001 ..its less than 10 years difference, again I think its that peoples idea of time is a little skewed and we forget just how old XP actually is.
What's comforting to me is that in a few years Core2 will be in that retro area and I will be able to pass on all the tinkering knowledge I have from my collection, its going to be a fun time for sure, the Core2 era was pretty crazy.
What is or isn't a retro experience isn't a matter of how old something is to me. Keep in mind I'm talking about my own subjective experience, not just how much time has gone by. Personally, XP feels fairly modern to me. Apart from a couple of games, I have been able to run almost every game from that on my Windows 10 computer. For me, a lot of these games feel modern apart from having worse graphics.
I'll contrast why the pre-XP era feels more retro to me.
First of all, it introduced a lot of hardware that allowed for a lot of creativity. Game developers were able to experiment with more advanced digitized sound and 3D graphics for instance. CD games were also introduced. It's fun going back to the "pioneers" so to speak. Because the technology matured at different times, you had games that were more advanced in some areas (e.g., sound) but more primitive in others (e.g., graphics). I find these juxtapositions interesting. Games like Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites would be good examples. By comparison, I feel like a lot of hardware matured during the XP era and hasn't changed greatly since then. I got my first widescreen monitor during this time, and while a variety of aspect rations have been introduced, the change doesn't feel the same as going from 4:3 to widescreen. After digital audio and higher capacity media were introduced, most improvements in sound have been small and incremental.
For some games, there are no modern day equivalents that come close to reproducing the experience. For example, the first two Jagged Alliance games were mind-blowing. To this day, I haven't found any game recreate those experiences as well as the original JAs did. There are some series that started back in the 90s, but over time, their modern versions have strayed further from the original experience. For example, the original X-COM games are more complex than any of the modern XCOM games. The Civilization games have also become more and more modernized as well. I still see new 4X space games that claim to capture the Master of Orion 2 experience. There's also Starflight, Star Control II, and a bunch of others that come to mind.
The culture and atmosphere changed quite a bit from the DOS-Win 98 era to the XP era. I'm really nostalgic for the Shareware era. I still like to pick up those old Shareware CDs and see what's one them. Games also felt more like a labor of love back then, as they made by small teams that were very passionate about their games (remember the old 200 page manuals?). In the 2000s, the teams creating games grew larger, and it felt more corporate in a way. That's not all bad, but for me, it lost some of the magic. Later on, I mainly played games that I bought at a large chain store, and later Steam. I missed the fun I had with trading Shareware games with friends or grabbing them from CDs.
