I think the definition of "retro" is the point of contention... IMHO, taking a page from other fields, whether something is considered retro or vintage is half-dependent on that objects age relative to such objects' timespan of existence. And the other half is just what the majority of collectors of such objects classify it to be. 😀
wrote:wrote:For me it is obvious that a computer that's >10 years old and used only for retrogaming is a retrocomputer. It's common sense really
How nice for you.
What if you're playing older games on a newer computer? Or what if only some of the parts are more than ten years old but not others? Do either of these factors so fundamentally change the experience that suddenly its nostalgic-quenching properties are somehow invalidated!?
Jorpho, we have a topic about what is retro/vintage and what is not. Will edit this post to include the link.
Edit: Link
wrote:I think the definition of "retro" is the point of contention... IMHO, taking a page from other fields, whether something is considered retro or vintage is half-dependent on that objects age relative to such objects' timespan of existence. And the other half is just what the majority of collectors of such objects classify it to be. 😀
Yup, looks like this one is nearly impossible to find a solution that everyone can be happy with L O L!
wrote:wrote:Historically MAcs and PC's have always been different. Would you have called a 68k or PowerPC based Mac a PC? Macs didn't start using Intel chips until 2006 and even then there are differences. You can't just slap an OS X disc in a PC and install it. Neither can you just slap a Windows disc in a Mac and install it. There are steps that must be taken and helper software that must be used to overcome the differences in the hardware, so even though most of the hardware used today is identical, a Mac is still NOT a PC. A PC is a Windows native machine and a Mac is an OS X native machine and even though you can get the OS designed for one to work on the other with some effort, it does not make them the same.
Nice try but your definition of a PC is flawed. Very much.
So the only thing that makes a PC is that it runs Windows natively? Really? That's your definition of a PC? Please read up on this subject, though I gwet to that at the bottom.
Dude, he only gave a couple examples instead of a definition.
Don't go "crying" about people's Dominus-appointed definitions when you don't even bother to give proper definitions yourself.
You're not being constructive here, you attack people over what you don't agree with while trying to remain behind a firewall yourself 🤣.
Go ahead and give us -your- opinion about the matter instead of only disagreeing with everyone elses 😜
I might as well argue you better not fall victim to the marketing on certain wiki-articles written by some disgrunted old goat 😜
for me the definition of "PC" isn't just an abbreviation of "personal computer" - it implies descent from the IBM PC architecture.
"runs Windows" isn't satisfactory, neither is "DOS", because a host of other OSes has been available for this architecture over the years, and then you have those old booter games that didn't require an OS at all, just PC compatibility.
"IBM" doesn't cut it for obvious reasons, neither do "Wintel" or even "x86".
It's still technically correct to use "PC" for anything that falls under the definition of a "personal computer", but that doesn't mean it's very useful... e.g. searching for material related to "PC gaming", and getting a host of results that throw the C64, the Amiga, the Apple II and the kitchen sink into the mix.
don't forget that "personal computer" is just one term with many other equivalents and near-fits ("home computer", "microcomputer", and so on).... the fact that this term caught on, and especially the abbreviation "PC", is majorly due to the success of the "IBM PC compatible" architecture, so that's what it seems fitting to use it for.
wrote:Nice try but your definition of a PC is flawed. Very much. So the only thing that makes a PC is that it runs Windows natively? R […]
wrote:wrote:You really like to complain do you? From the definition that page gives on personal computers, macs fit. Apple tried to differ w […]
You really like to complain do you?
From the definition that page gives on personal computers, macs fit. Apple tried to differ with the "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" spots but I'm hard pressed to say what the differences are.
Different OS? OS X is a Unix runs on non-macs.
The hardware? Not much difference.
But you have a problem with it, so you should have the right answer...Historically MAcs and PC's have always been different. Would you have called a 68k or PowerPC based Mac a PC? Macs didn't start using Intel chips until 2006 and even then there are differences. You can't just slap an OS X disc in a PC and install it. Neither can you just slap a Windows disc in a Mac and install it. There are steps that must be taken and helper software that must be used to overcome the differences in the hardware, so even though most of the hardware used today is identical, a Mac is still NOT a PC. A PC is a Windows native machine and a Mac is an OS X native machine and even though you can get the OS designed for one to work on the other with some effort, it does not make them the same.
Nice try but your definition of a PC is flawed. Very much.
So the only thing that makes a PC is that it runs Windows natively? Really? That's your definition of a PC? Please read up on this subject, though I gwet to that at the bottom.
The only difference between todays mac and a so called PC is the bios and even that will not be much different for long. Yes, to run either OS X on a normal PC or Windows on a Mac you need a boot manager. Wow, a boot manager is the difference... (ok, for running OS X on a normal PC you need some distinct hardware and may need to do some hacking).
Give it up, by definition a Mac has always been a Personal Computer (a computer that can be run and used by one person, opposed to the once upon a time big workstations), what you mean is the difference between certain branches of personal computers. On the one branch you have the Mac and on the other hand you have the IBM-PC and IBM-PC compatible computers. And yes, people say PC when they actually mean an IBM-PC compatible computer, doesn't make it right by definition 😀
Yes, PC DOES mean an IBM--->PC<-- compatible computer. That's where the term comes from, actually. The term "personal computer" didn't even exist in the mainstream until IBM released the PC. Before then the terms microcomputer and home computer were used. I can make OS X run on my AMD machine but that doesn't mean I can call it a Mac. PC and Mac are NOT interchangeable terms.
http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml you might think that IBM was it but you are wrong.
I might give in to that PC traditionally means IBM Pc (compatible). That makes a Mac a personal computer but not a PC. The OP did mock about personal computers though.
And of course running OSX on your AMD doesn't make it a Mac. YOU brought it up that a Mac means it's running OS X natively. A Mac is a personal computer made by Apple. You could put your amd in a packard bell case, but that wouldn't make it a Packard Bell.
wrote:http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml you might think that IBM was it but you are wrong.
I might give in to that PC traditionally means IBM Pc (compatible). That makes a Mac a personal computer but not a PC. The OP did mock about personal computers though.And of course running OSX on your AMD doesn't make it a Mac. YOU brought it up that a Mac means it's running OS X natively. A Mac is a personal computer made by Apple. You could put your amd in a packard bell case, but that wouldn't make it a Packard Bell.
This reminds me of a political argument that sprang up in recent years where some left wing idiots in favor of open borders have taken to calling all inhabitants of North and South America "Americans". That is not correct, either. All the peoples of the "Americas" identify with their individual countries of origin. They do not refer to themselves as "Americans" in Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, El Salvador, Bolivia, Columbia, Peru, Brazil, or any other country in the "Americas". The only people who refer to themselves as Americans are citizens of the United States of America and, indeed, the USA is the ONLY country in the "Americas" that even has the word "America" in it's name. So just as not everybody who lives in the "Americas" can call themselves an "American", neither can you call every computer a PC. That term is reserved for descendants of the original IBM PC and early compatibles.
Like I wrote I give in to PC meaning IBM-PC, but that doesn't make the term "personal computer" IBM-PC only.
As for that Americas thing, in Europe, when you are not sure where a person from south america comes from, gets called south american. When you talk about North America, Canada is included. And yes when you just call someone American you mean a US citizen.
So to keep with the analogy, personal computer is analog to american continent and USA is PC 😉
I call them people from across the ocean.
So it's just computers? 😉
Back on topic, heres what the word "retro" actually stands for:
retro-
prefix meaning "backwards, behind," from L. retro (prep.) "backward, back, behind," probably originally the ablative form of *reteros, based on re- "back." Common in combinations in post-classical Latin.
This is relevant for the word retrocomputing.
When someone builds (or buys, whatever) a 3DFX rig for playing glide games, his goal is a computer for reliving the past. No arguments there.
Since this is a computer which use has the same meaning in the sense that it's about going "backwards" as a C64, both a C64 and a 3DFX rig are technically retrocomputers.
And in the same way a 3DFX rig is technically a retrocomputer, playing glide games on it's original hardware is technically retrogaming.
The exclusion of these are thus technically wrong.
Why would anyone (ok, here I go bitching again since I'm creating a lil fanclub of my own hehe 😁 )consider a C64 as retro, but a 3DFX rig not?
Possibly because of personal reasons, since technically he has no reason to make a distinction between the 2 when it comes to the words retrogaming and retrocomputing. Retro is about "going backwards", it's where the word originated from.
The word "vintage" can be similarly interpreted. Calling a Pentium 3 running 98SE and a glide graphics card is technically a vintage computer. You may disagree, but technically it's actually the truth!
I was quite surprised actually. The word "vintage" doesn't even exist in Dutch so this was kinda a revelation of small sort 😜
As I wrote before the exclusion is likely because there doesn't exist THE 3dfx rig. A C64 is a set of known hardware that makes up the computer. A 3dfx rig is a merger of parts which could ne anything. The exclusion is thus probably not intentional but stems from the authors angle. When one starts out with
Edit, hit the wrong button, continuing...
the article describing whole machines in retro computing it's understandable to miss retro parts.
And I think this distinction is right. IMO it would make sense to have a seperate article about "retro PC parts" or ecen better seperate articles about retro PC graphics cards and retro PC sound cards.
The important thing about the 3dfx rig is the 3dfx card, the other parts aren't that important (could be an AMD or intel CPU, amount of. RAm etc.) though the article should describe what's the best combination to avoid bottlenecks.
wrote:When someone builds (or buys, whatever) a 3DFX rig for playing glide games, his goal is a computer for reliving the past. No arguments there.
Why does it have to be about "reliving the past"? Can't it simply be about "playing an old game"? (Heck, let's leave "old" out of the discussion and just call it "incompatible", because that's what it really is.)
If someone uses a Glide wrapper, does his experience no longer count as "reliving the past" despite the fact that he's doing something that looks and plays practically exactly the same as something that could be done with a "3DFX rig"? In what way does the experience differ?
And isn't this something you intended for That Other Thread? 🤣
I think the reason why so many people don't consider old PC hardware as retro is because the PC has existed continuously in some form from the time the first IBM PC rolled off the assembly line. Other retro machines like Commodore, Atari, Apple II, etc all went out of production long ago. To a lot of retrogamers there is no line of distinction drawn between the earliest IBM PC and compatibles and the versions that exist today so they don't consider them when talking about retro gaming systems because to them the PC still exists so it can't be retro. The retro DOS/Windows PC community isn't always helpful in that regard, either, as everyone has their own definition of what constitutes retro. For one person a P-III system might be retro but for someone else it's a 386/486. For someone very young, they might even consider a Netburst or Pentium M based system to be retro.
I think the reason why so many people don't consider old PC hardware as retro is because the PC has existed continuously in some form from the time the first IBM PC rolled off the assembly line.
Yes, and Intel playing a nice role in keeping processors backwards compatible (are IA64 machines called PCs?).
wrote:I think the reason why so many people don't consider old PC hardware as retro is because the PC has existed continuously in some form from the time the first IBM PC rolled off the assembly line.
Yes, and Intel playing a nice role in keeping processors backwards compatible (are IA64 machines called PCs?).
Not only Intel, but also Microsoft. Look at all the legacy baggage that Windows carries for the sake of backwards compatibility. That's why the Mac OS was better in that regard because it was more streamlined. Once Apple deemed a piece of hardware to be obsolete, support was dropped from the next version of Mac OS. If you still used that piece of hardware, then it was time to upgrade. The amount of legacy baggage was kept to a minimum. Did some Apple buyers feel alienated when their hardware was dropped from legacy support? Yes, but it wasn't without careful consideration that Apple dropped something so as to have a minimal impact on the user base. Most things that went obsolete from one version of Mac OS to the next were things that most of the current generation of Mac users were no longer using anyway. It was usually those on the trailing edge of the user base that saw their hardware cut from legacy support and usually their systems were 4 or 5 years old by that time, sometimes older, and they would be ready to upgrade to a newer machine soon anyway. Compare that to Windows 7 which installs to a machine with a 1ghz CPU. The first 1ghz CPU was the Athlon 1000mhz that came out around 11 years ago, and naturally if you support an 11 year old CPU, then you also have to support the 11 year old motherboards and peripherals that someone owning such a machine might still be using. 11 years of technology is a lot of legacy baggage to carry around. By comparison the current version of OS X doesn't support anything earlier than 2006, which was when the first Intel Macs were released.
I'm fairly confident in my belief that the Wintel dominance of today is a result of the extensive backwards compatibility that they have pumped massive money into to appease risk averse customers. I mean Win7 32-bit runs DOS and Win16 apps AFAIK and it has XP Mode just to be sure! This isn't done because of retro nostalgia at MS. And Intel/AMD don't keep banging their heads against x86 because it's their passion.
In fact the way x86 managed to blow past just about every other competing architecture is proof enough. The unreal R&D monies from the sales of zillions of Wintel boxes funded the brains to beat architectures that everyone thought would murder Intel.
I actually am thankful of Intel and Microsoft for their legacy support. If anything, Microsoft is to be congratulated for their continuous backwards compatibility. They're doing the best they can.
Also, by the term PC, I think people generally mean x86 based computers.
Now here's my own view of retro systems. Generally, people don't consider stuff as retro unless they're about 15 years and older. I however grew up playing shitty DOS shareware games and 1997-1999 games on my good ol' Pentium 1. As soon as I got rid of that machine though, I wanted to play those "older" games again after a while. When I upgraded to Windows XP things got even worse. I used to download "abandonware" games from The Underdogs (probably one of favorite websites ever) at a very early age and got to play a lot of older games. I always considered them old in a sense that they were games I grew up with. There were also games I saw in magazines and wanted very badly or games that my brother played and I would just watch him playing them. Such memories are carved in my memory and will possibly never go away. DOSBox was the first step towards playing a lot of DOS games ( I jumped on the bandwagon around November 2005, version 0.63!!!) and each update was huge. Then came my first Retro PC and I started building more and more from then on.
So my point is, Retro is not only something really old. Retro are also things from your own past that you look with nostalgia. If you were already old enough when you got your first PC for example, even if it was 15 years ago, a part of you tells that hey it hasn't been that long ago. At least that's how it has always worked for me.
wrote:I'm fairly confident in my belief that the Wintel dominance of today is a result of the extensive backwards compatibility that they have pumped massive money into to appease risk averse customers. I mean Win7 32-bit runs DOS and Win16 apps AFAIK and it has XP Mode just to be sure! This isn't done because of retro nostalgia at MS. And Intel/AMD don't keep banging their heads against x86 because it's their passion.
In fact the way x86 managed to blow past just about every other competing architecture is proof enough. The unreal R&D monies from the sales of zillions of Wintel boxes funded the brains to beat architectures that everyone thought would murder Intel.
And yet Apple still manages to sell more computers than any single PC manufacturer. The only reason DOS/Windows dominated wasn't because of backwards compatibility, but the simple fact that Apple is one company and there are limits as to how much hardware they can sell and there are hundreds of companies selling Windows boxes globally. It was the cloning of the PC architecture that made Windows dominant, not anything that Microsoft did. Microsoft just benefited from the large number of PC clone makers that sprang up that needed an operating system to sell with their systems and Microsoft was the only game in town. Steve Jobs was very shortsighted when he ditched the clone makers program when he returned to Apple. If they would license OS X to someone like Michael Dell, then they would be a serious alternative to Windows.
Be interested to see the sales figures, do you have a link?
wrote:And yet Apple still manages to sell more computers than any single PC manufacturer.
...
Steve Jobs was very shortsighted when he ditched the clone makers program when he returned to Apple.
Considering that making money and staying in business is probably more important than some ideological motive like providing an alternative to Windows, it doesn't seem very shortsighted at all.
