Why do we do retro PCs? Because usually, we had these 4digit-$ priced things when we were young. That will bias participation here.

paterpaulandmary wrote on 2024-09-15, 16:37:

Hello! My impression is, that Vogons is site #1 for old computer stuff, at least here on planet earth (yo?). Everyone, who is interested in computing, speaks enaugh (omg-, pidgin-) english to verbalize his / her matter. But the boards statistics says, that almost every user is from the so-called 'Western-World', incl. Japan. What about Africa, China, India, Mongolia, Russia, South America, ... ? (I could list +/- 130 of 165 countries.) Afaik, myriads of tons of old hardware are beeing sold to so-called 'less developed' or 'poor' countries. They've (at least) GSM-Internet and have to cope with our exported trash. I'm just wondering why they are silent...

Btw: Vogons is .org in US, but there is no stressable legal information. Who finances you? NSA?
Btw: Did you just 'borrow' Mr Adams' characters or are they licensed?

wow. go away.

paterpaulandmary wrote on 2024-09-15, 16:37:

Hello! My impression is, that Vogons is site #1 for old computer stuff, at least here on planet earth (yo?). Everyone, who is interested in computing, speaks enaugh (omg-, pidgin-) english to verbalize his / her matter. But the boards statistics says, that almost every user is from the so-called 'Western-World', incl. Japan. What about Africa, China, India, Mongolia, Russia, South America, ... ? (I could list +/- 130 of 165 countries.) Afaik, myriads of tons of old hardware are beeing sold to so-called 'less developed' or 'poor' countries. They've (at least) GSM-Internet and have to cope with our exported trash. I'm just wondering why they are silent...

Btw: Vogons is .org in US, but there is no stressable legal information. Who finances you? NSA?
Btw: Did you just 'borrow' Mr Adams' characters or are they licensed?

You seem to have a bit of a bone to pick , the fact of the matter is that vogons has almost always been biased to helping people with ibm pc compatibles either with real hardware or emulation.

And there's nothing wrong with that , what you are doing is the equivalent of going somewhere like reddit , which is frequented mostly by Americans and complaining that its American biased.

Look if you don't like vogons , you are free to start your own forum that specialises in obscure computers from the middle east , Africa, Asia that aren't pc compatibles.

But to come here and whine is like the most Karen thing to do.

paterpaulandmary wrote on 2024-09-15, 16:37:

Hello! My impression is, that Vogons is site #1 for old computer stuff, at least here on planet earth (yo?). Everyone, who is interested in computing, speaks enaugh (omg-, pidgin-) english to verbalize his / her matter. But the boards statistics says, that almost every user is from the so-called 'Western-World', incl. Japan. What about Africa, China, India, Mongolia, Russia, South America, ... ? (I could list +/- 130 of 165 countries.) Afaik, myriads of tons of old hardware are beeing sold to so-called 'less developed' or 'poor' countries. They've (at least) GSM-Internet and have to cope with our exported trash. I'm just wondering why they are silent...

Btw: Vogons is .org in US, but there is no stressable legal information. Who finances you? NSA?
Btw: Did you just 'borrow' Mr Adams' characters or are they licensed?

火钳刘明！ 🤪

Where did you acquire those "boards statistics" then? You just signed up yesterday.

"They've (at least) GSM-Internet"
Where is the largest 5G network located? Where is the foundry of CPU in your computers and smartphones? Where were PCBs in >90% of your electronic devices made?

ux-3 wrote on 2024-09-15, 17:17:

Why do we do retro PCs? Because usually, we had these 4digit-$ priced things when we were young. That will bias participation here.

Exactly, and that's why when some millennial teenagers post here make me feel...... unnatural. It's nothing wrong (and I'd say veterans of any non-mainstream subculture would be more than eager to share knowledge with young bloods), just not something you'd expect to see every other day.

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-15, 23:46:

Look if you don't like vogons , you are free to start your own forum that specialises in obscure computers from the middle east , Africa, Asia that aren't pc compatibles.

In Asia, the country with most "obscure computers" was Japan, where OP regarded as part of the "Western-World." 🙄

paterpaulandmary wrote on 2024-09-15, 16:37:

Btw: Did you just 'borrow' Mr Adams' characters or are they licensed?

VOGONS is an acronym. It stands for Very Old Games On New Systems.

"I never feed trolls and I don't read spam!
-weird Al

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-15, 23:47:

火钳刘明！ 🤪 […]
Show full quote

paterpaulandmary wrote on 2024-09-15, 16:37:

Hello! My impression is, that Vogons is site #1 for old computer stuff, at least here on planet earth (yo?). Everyone, who is interested in computing, speaks enaugh (omg-, pidgin-) english to verbalize his / her matter. But the boards statistics says, that almost every user is from the so-called 'Western-World', incl. Japan. What about Africa, China, India, Mongolia, Russia, South America, ... ? (I could list +/- 130 of 165 countries.) Afaik, myriads of tons of old hardware are beeing sold to so-called 'less developed' or 'poor' countries. They've (at least) GSM-Internet and have to cope with our exported trash. I'm just wondering why they are silent...

Btw: Vogons is .org in US, but there is no stressable legal information. Who finances you? NSA?
Btw: Did you just 'borrow' Mr Adams' characters or are they licensed?

火钳刘明！ 🤪

Where did you acquire those "boards statistics" then? You just signed up yesterday.

"They've (at least) GSM-Internet"
Where is the largest 5G network located? Where is the foundry of CPU in your computers and smartphones? Where were PCBs in >90% of your electronic devices made?

ux-3 wrote on 2024-09-15, 17:17:

Why do we do retro PCs? Because usually, we had these 4digit-$ priced things when we were young. That will bias participation here.

Exactly, and that's why when some millennial teenagers post here make me feel...... unnatural. It's nothing wrong (and I'd say veterans of any non-mainstream subculture would be more than eager to share knowledge with young bloods), just not something you'd expect to see every other day.

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-15, 23:46:

Look if you don't like vogons , you are free to start your own forum that specialises in obscure computers from the middle east , Africa, Asia that aren't pc compatibles.

In Asia, the country with most "obscure computers" was Japan, where OP regarded as part of the "Western-World." 🙄

I know what you mean when you mention the eye roll worthy statement on the OP's part but I guess he meant to say western allied nations.

The fact is that japans computers while somewhat obscure do have some level of coverage and blogs written about them. Im sure there's at least a subset of people familiar with the sharp x1 , nec pc8801 , nec pc9800 line , sharp x68000 , MSX , fujitsu Fm7 ,Fujitsu FM towns etc.

When I said obscure Asian computers I was more talking about countries like the Philippines, Singapore , Malaysia , Vietnam , China , and maybe Korea to a degree.

I mean can anyone name me any native systems from those areas.

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:02:

I know what you mean when you mention the eye roll worthy statement on the OP's part but I guess he meant to say western allied nations.

Yes, I was fully aware of that.

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:02:

The fact is that japans computers while somewhat obscure do have some level of coverage and blogs written about them. Im sure there's at least a subset of people familiar with the sharp x1 , nec pc8801 , nec pc9800 line , sharp x68000 , MSX , fujitsu Fm7 ,Fujitsu FM towns etc.

When I said obscure Asian computers I was more talking about countries like the Philippines, Singapore , Malaysia , Vietnam , China , and maybe Korea to a degree.

I mean can anyone name me any native systems from those areas.

Define "native".

Do you need a novel, brand new, never-before-seen architecture with zero foreign knowledge input to call it "native"? Your examples of Japanese personal computers were far from that.

In the case of China, the first domestic computer was Model 103 in August 1958. The first consumer-grade computer was China Education Computer (CEC) in 1986, compatible with Apple II but with Chinese character input and output, along with Logo language built-in its ROM. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N04NY66skSk

Mr. Adams? I never noticed Fester there up the left corner! 🤣

paterpaulandmary wrote on 2024-09-15, 16:37:

Hello! My impression is, that Vogons is site #1 for old computer stuff

yes, like Epson Xp 332-335 😀

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-16, 08:16:

Yes, I was fully aware of that. […]
Show full quote

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:02:

I know what you mean when you mention the eye roll worthy statement on the OP's part but I guess he meant to say western allied nations.

Yes, I was fully aware of that.

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:02:

The fact is that japans computers while somewhat obscure do have some level of coverage and blogs written about them. Im sure there's at least a subset of people familiar with the sharp x1 , nec pc8801 , nec pc9800 line , sharp x68000 , MSX , fujitsu Fm7 ,Fujitsu FM towns etc.

When I said obscure Asian computers I was more talking about countries like the Philippines, Singapore , Malaysia , Vietnam , China , and maybe Korea to a degree.

I mean can anyone name me any native systems from those areas.

Define "native".

Do you need a novel, brand new, never-before-seen architecture with zero foreign knowledge input to call it "native"? Your examples of Japanese personal computers were far from that.

In the case of China, the first domestic computer was Model 103 in August 1958. The first consumer-grade computer was China Education Computer (CEC) in 1986, compatible with Apple II but with Chinese character input and output, along with Logo language built-in its ROM. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N04NY66skSk

I've heard of the cec but I doubt others have. By native machines I just mean systems that aren't clones or rebadged versions of existing computers from other countries.

They have their own national websites for retro hardware enthusiasts. Many of people there just don't speak English good enough.

OP didn't come back so far...

ux-3 wrote on 2024-09-16, 11:53:

OP didn't come back so far...

Check out OP's updated signature. Hope it lasts.

paterpaulandmary wrote on 2024-09-15, 16:37:

Hello! My impression is, that Vogons is site #1 for old computer stuff, at least here on planet earth (yo?). Everyone, who is interested in computing, speaks enaugh (omg-, pidgin-) english to verbalize his / her matter. But the boards statistics says, that almost every user is from the so-called 'Western-World', incl. Japan. What about Africa, China, India, Mongolia, Russia, South America, ... ? (I could list +/- 130 of 165 countries.) Afaik, myriads of tons of old hardware are beeing sold to so-called 'less developed' or 'poor' countries. They've (at least) GSM-Internet and have to cope with our exported trash. I'm just wondering why they are silent...

Btw: Vogons is .org in US, but there is no stressable legal information. Who finances you? NSA?
Btw: Did you just 'borrow' Mr Adams' characters or are they licensed?

I have seen posts here from people in every part of the "Non Western World" (as you call it) that you have mentioned, except Mongolia. This is based on what people disclose as being their location

Maybe some of the forum participants from the "Non Western World" will want to share why they believe that there are relatively few of them here, assuming they have insight into this. Otherwise, one obviously cannot expect people who are not here to answer a question posted here.

As for my perspective on this as someone who lives in the "Western World", other than possibly the English language barrier, the fact that this hobby is often nostalgia based (people who may have access to old discarded retro tech now didn't while it was current and might often have not even known it existed at the time) is probably the most significant.

P.S. I wonder where you are getting your statistics and I wonder if you have considered that some users might be using VPNs to mask their place of origin. I can easily imagine perfectly valid reasons for doing this .

Im argentinian living in Spain, from my point of view, vogons is super nice to share/find data about retro computers, but fail in two point for us, first, english, is a big barrier, second, is pretty common in spanish forums to talk/share abandonware, maybe because we dont care, or our laws are differents, i dont know

I often post in retrocomputers/consoles forums in spanish, and i do a mix of info and abandonware, i really miss this in vogons, and thats why i post few here, beside writing/reading english is difficult

Look im perfectly okay with people posting thier obscure systems from wherever , but I don't get OPs point , he's acting like we need to police vogons and make sure there isn't too many western systems or something?
Then he starts rambling about the NSA like some tinfoil hat wearer.

Ah well either way he's nipped off so I guess that's that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z15pxWUXvLY

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-16, 08:16:

Yes, I was fully aware of that. […]
Show full quote

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:02:

I know what you mean when you mention the eye roll worthy statement on the OP's part but I guess he meant to say western allied nations.

Yes, I was fully aware of that.

AppleSauce wrote on 2024-09-16, 03:02:

The fact is that japans computers while somewhat obscure do have some level of coverage and blogs written about them. Im sure there's at least a subset of people familiar with the sharp x1 , nec pc8801 , nec pc9800 line , sharp x68000 , MSX , fujitsu Fm7 ,Fujitsu FM towns etc.

When I said obscure Asian computers I was more talking about countries like the Philippines, Singapore , Malaysia , Vietnam , China , and maybe Korea to a degree.

I mean can anyone name me any native systems from those areas.

Define "native".

Do you need a novel, brand new, never-before-seen architecture with zero foreign knowledge input to call it "native"? Your examples of Japanese personal computers were far from that.

In the case of China, the first domestic computer was Model 103 in August 1958. The first consumer-grade computer was China Education Computer (CEC) in 1986, compatible with Apple II but with Chinese character input and output, along with Logo language built-in its ROM. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N04NY66skSk

The OP is likely just another ㄒㄧㄠˇㄈㄣˇㄏㄨㄥˊ 😀
Ｗouldn't think too much over it.