In my mind, but this will differ from person to person, these categories exist. I realize they are a bit weird! And while thinking about it and writing it down, I'm doubting it haha. I might want to break up 1 in two bits, but I don't know where. And this only considers IBM compatible stuff and Microsoft OSes. I put lines between what I consider retro and modern. I don't use the word vintage, ' ' 'vintage' is more looks than functionality for me.
1. XT/8088/286/386/486 (ISA)
2. 486 (VLB/PCI + ISA )(this is kindof a transition from 1 to 3 for me)
3. Pentium/K5/6x86 (Socket 5/7; PCI)
4. Pentium 2&3/K6-2&3/K7 (PCI+AGP)
5. Pentium 4/K8 (AGP)
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6. Pentium 4 (no AGP)
7. More than one core per CPU
With software:
1. DOS + Windows 1/2/3
2. Windows 9x & Windows 2000
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3. Windows XP/Vista
4. Windows 7 and beyond
Other considerations for me:
- VGA and pre-VGA
- USB (which is basically PCI and Windows 95 OSR2)
- CD-ROM
- 32bit / 64bit (CPU+OS)
- IDE
- etc