First post, by RacoonRider
- Rank
- Oldbie
Hello, guys!
It's been a long time! The new version of the website sure looks great!
I have been active here on Vogons for quite some time up until around 2014 when I drifted away from the whole retro hardware world completely. There were people here I remember with fondness, however, most of them have not logged in for more than a year now. I hope they are well, doing some interesting stuff and having fun. In a few years that I have not been active here on Vogons a lot has changed for me. I got married, abandoned my Ph.D. efforts, changed profession and took up long-distance cycling seriously enough to find myself at the finish line of the 1200km Paris-Brest-Paris cycling marathon. My views and ideas have changed a lot, yet I still feel that sweet spot in my heart for good old hardware.
A few days ago I looked at my 486. I loved it so much, yet there it was collecting dust under my desk, beautiful, ready to be powered up, yet lonely and forgotten. I started the machine, played some Duke3D, The Lost Vikings, then Lemmings and had a wonderful time. The next day I set the CPU to run at 3x50MHz through external switches and fired up Descent. I always wanted to know how it would work on a high-end 486 - not great, OKish, but still fun. It all felt great, I fiddled with hardware, installed the Gravis Ultrasound audio card and reconfigured the whole thing and overall had a very nice time. And I want more of it.
Since it looks like I'm once again into this hobby, it makes me look back at the old days with a newfound perspective, ask myself why I was into this hobby, what fueled my interest, why I eventually lost it. And the answer is I was young and wanted to feel special, appreciated, I wanted to be an interesting person. I felt special building the "incredibly complicated" gear. Once projects were completed and it was time to actually use them by the purpose - playing retro games on authentic hardware - I often lost interest. I also liked your feedback a lot, so much that I posted every retro find into a relevant thread, ended up hoarding more than actually having fun with. That thread, in particular, fed my interest the same way a child wants some toy simply because other children play with it and not because it is particularly fun to play with. However simple the impulse, it kept me going for longer than I could have expected.
What do I have to say now that I'm older and, presumably, wiser? Public opinion and general feeling of appreciation should never be the main reason behind your actions. Nobody truly cares about your achievements in any field except for your family or maybe your closest friends. If you are into a hobby, do what you like because you like it, not because you are supposed to like it. More so if you're about to make a life-changing decision - do it because it is best for you, your family, your friends, not someone else. Last, but not least - you don't have to be special. It seems like everybody wants to, especially here in Russia, where most people buy cars they can't realistically afford and smartphones that get outdated before the owner has a chance to close the loan. It is so abundant that not trying to be special makes one very very special.
This post is not intended as "I'm back into retro hardware, but now I don't give a shit what you think" message. I just want you to pause for a minute and think. Are you building your next ultimate rig to impress forum members or to actually play with it? Is there actual function behind the next rare audiocard you are on the hunt for or do you want it simply because others have it? Does playing retro games give you satisfaction by itself, or are you doing it because it makes you feel special?