sf78 wrote on 2021-01-29, 10:46:

I draw the line at around '00 for anything relating to vintage computing. Everything since is just a rehash of the same 64 bit/2-4-8 core processors and not that interesting. Mainly because integrated sound, net, USB etc. that makes tinkering a boring concept.

100/100

imi wrote on 2021-01-29, 10:53:

retro does not have a specific year attached to it for me, the way computers worked in 2006 is pretty much the same as today, so there is nothing fundamentally different about them apart from being slower.
but once you go to the early 2000s and before, computers were a lot more "diverse" so to say, different architectures, more choice, sound cards etc. that's what feels "retro" to me.

that's a good point, maybe it's more a 'big' shift in architecture than simply the years which denotes where the line is crossed

creepingnet wrote on 2021-01-29, 18:55:

CONSOLES

To me, consoles really don't become "vintage" to anyone other than the group that grew up with them. I was watching a video with Pat the NES Punk a few days ago discussing how the Gamecube is the #1 most populare retro-console right now.

One thing discussed in his video was how the Atari 2600 seems to be slowly being forgotten - and that's where I STARTED with consoles.

that made me think, the atari 2600 was out in the late 70's and had a high profile until the early 80's, so most people for whom this represents their childhood are now around 50 or older.

The GameCube was around in the early 2000's so most people for whom this represents their childhood are around 30

Maybe the age group of the enthusiasts is key, being on one's 30's is the first hit of nostalgia for many so it generates a wave of interest and they get older the topic is done and the interest recedes

Namrok wrote on 2021-01-29, 16:09:

I think it's prices. Thing get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper as they become obsolete. Then at some point get more expensive as they become "vintage". I'm not sure if Athlon 64/Pentium 4 systems are "vintage" yet in that regard. Just built one, and it was way cheaper than the SS7 system I built. In fact Pentium 4's are practically being given away if you don't mind buying old Dell office systems.

the price curve, where the price gets to almost giveaway then slowly climbs and then suddenly skyrockets - the journey from old to vintage - it interests me, there's probably a huge (wasteful) period of throwing away of stuff just at that low point and then a few years later the surviving hardware is suddenly expensive and supply dips below the remaining demand)

pan069 wrote on 2021-01-29, 20:37:

If I'm not mistaken, "retro" means something along the lines of "imitation". I.e. something that was popular in the past made a […]
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If I'm not mistaken, "retro" means something along the lines of "imitation". I.e. something that was popular in the past made a comeback. I guess fashion is the most obvious example. So, retro doesn't mean "old", it means it's new but mimicking something from the past.

This would mean that in computing, these recently released Nintendo and PlayStation minis are retro. A genuine 386 from 1990 is vintage.

So, I guess the majority of people on this board are into "vintage computing" not "retro computing".

Technicalities I guess...

i think you're right!, i tend to use retro where i really mean vintage

gerry wrote on 2021-02-01, 09:39:

the price curve, where the price gets to almost giveaway then slowly climbs and then suddenly skyrockets - the journey from old to vintage - it interests me, there's probably a huge (wasteful) period of throwing away of stuff just at that low point and then a few years later the surviving hardware is suddenly expensive and supply dips below the remaining demand)

It's hard for me to imagine that a P4 or an AMD XP would ever become desirable. They are 20 year old systems, but don't really create much interest. The reason for me is that you can pretty much do anything from 00's until today with a single (modern) PC and there is very little need for those 00-05 systems to exist anymore. Its a completely different thing when going back to Win 95 and DOS era unless you are emulating everything. The integration and backwards compatibility has really come far from the 80's and 90's. The experience of using a computer hasn't really changed since the 90's, it has only evolved slightly.

Core 2 in many ways feels relatively new, but also antiquate,
it was the last using the old style FSB, old school style chipset,
the platform is basically an extended version of the P4 platform...

but I sill have quite a few Core 2s running daily as current machines, you couldn't realistically do that with a 1985 computer in 2000, or a 1995 computer in 2010... it's different.

SPBHM wrote on 2021-02-01, 13:36:

Core 2 in many ways feels relatively new, but also antiquate, it was the last using the old style FSB, old school style chipset, […]
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Core 2 in many ways feels relatively new, but also antiquate,
it was the last using the old style FSB, old school style chipset,
the platform is basically an extended version of the P4 platform...

but I sill have quite a few Core 2s running daily as current machines, you couldn't realistically do that with a 1985 computer in 2000, or a 1995 computer in 2010... it's different.

That's something I find particularly interesting about the Core 2 generation is that it has some pretty strong longevity. I was using circa 1992-1993 computers in 2001 as my main PC and I had to fight "professionals" and even occasionally lie to sales people for things behind the counter at the time if I had to ask for stuff (ie say I have a PEntium II when I was putting the part in a 486 - which of course would work 100%). ACtually, even the P4 has some pretty strong longevity. a P4 with Windows 7 can still do (albeit quite slowly) all the things a Core i3, i5, or i7 can do.

I think a lot of this longevity is also what is affecting PC sales. People who still use a PC and know how to use one well are probably thinking "well.....if my Core 2 Duo can still surf the web comfortably under Windows 10, and can still download my e-mail, post to my Facebook, and watch Youtube Videos? Why should I shell up $250 for the next Wal-Mart Special - and then remember my cloud password or find my old WD Passport drive and go shuffle all my data to a new HDD? What's the Benefit?". The people these days that claim their PC is "old and slow" are typically the ones that install 100 toolbars, animated wallpapers, download lots of "Free" software from non-reputable sites, or use weird search engines, and tend to be the types that follow gimmicks - or they are the 5% of users that actually work their machine hard ie CAD, large spreadsheets, or high end gaming with full details which then facilities buying a new machine - like my sister and all her high end RPG games with realistic weather elements.

I got into computing a lot later than most of you. My parents were poor growing up. I didn't get my first PC until I was twelve, that was 2005, and it was the era of the ultra cheap PC. Pentium IV, 64mb of RAM, windows XP, integrated graphics. It was terrible, and I used it for almost five years. My first real foray into computing happened when I built my own custom gaming PC in 2008, from parts I bought with my own money working all summer at a part time job.

There is a lot of software from 2005-2010 that I really love. I miss real time strategy games and PC simulators. I miss the quirky, experimental RPGs and an early 3d games. I miss the time when gaming, in particular PC gaming, wasn't mainstream yet because more software titles felt like they were made for me.

I don't have much to say about the hardware though. It's true, my first graphics card I ever bought doesn't feel that different than any other graphics card just slower. I had a CRT monitor I paired with it for a while but I upgraded to LCD, and while I used DVI for a couple of years, I have been on HDMI ever since. The numbers get bigger but the tech stays the same.

Although I didn't really grow up with it, the DOS era of computers is a lot more fun. Maybe part of that is DOS era games were conemparies to my childhood games growing up. I didn't have a DOS PC, but I did have a Super Nintendo.

I just wish it wasn't so damn expensive :p.

Been in this hobby for 10 years now the cut off year is slowly extending
Back in 2011 we were already building Win9x retro boxes despite 98 still been younger then 15 years.
XP is now older then 98 was at that time yet sits on the border of what's considered retro.
So do we judge on release date or when it went EOL? which isn't very accurate as plenty of people on this forum still use XP and 7 as their daily PC well past this date.

Hardware is even more difficult.
We all agree Win9x is retro but what if you install Win98 on a S775 motherboard which is defiantly not retro or even more confusing S478 which is debatable but has a retro era graphics and sound card installed. does the CPU/MB exclude it from retro status even though it has AGP video, PCI sound, IDE drives and 9x OS?

For me I'd call S478 borderline. AGP, IDE, PCI to a lesser extent are all obsolete. That's a slight increase in the cut off date 10 years ago
XP isn't retro yet, it was just far to common even 5 years ago, That's a massive increase in the cut off date to previous OS's
But if you have a S775 PC running Win98 then by all means call it your retro PC as thats what you are using it for.

and of course this is all personal and doesn't really matter. Only thing that annoys me is people thinking just because something is obsolete it immediately becomes retro

Retro and vintage are to me, two way different terms.

As I understand the term "retro", then it is more about what is nostalgic to one personally. One can use the word nostalgia to describe how I see the word retro. Basically, I cringe, whenever some young dude at the age of 15, are calling a NES console for Retro hardware, when that person is unboxing that recently purchased console and never ever seen one in person before. In other words, what is retro to me, may not be retro to the person next to me.

If one that have used 2005 WinXP gaming machines at the age of 15, are describing that hardware as retro today, then that is fully correct and totally in place. However that is not retro to me, because I used computers back then for work related tasks exclusively. Basically, they were tools for everyday life in my case, and thus not retro to me at all these days. I mean. It would be, if I used a 2005 computer for everyday life related tasks. However that would be a giant PITA, if I chose to do so.

Vintage on the other hand, is to me a fully acceptable term to describe everything computing related. Yes, even Cor2Duo machines. Because they are outdated, and because things are moving so fast in the computing world, then that type of machine as well as 8086 based machines are all vintage to me.

Sorry for my rant. I just think the term Retro are all too loosely thrown around these days.

brostenen wrote on 2021-02-02, 12:48:

Vintage on the other hand, is to me a fully acceptable term to describe everything computing related. Yes, even Cor2Duo machines. Because they are outdated,

See this is what annoys me
Technically vintage means anything over 20 years, anything younger is just old, outdated, obsolete
but then as already mentioned we aren't using the term retro correctly either so your closer to correct definition then I am calling a S775 running Win98 a "Retro PC" so I can't say anything.

I fully agree the way we use retro here is more based on nostalgia then actual dates. Many members here first PC was Win95 based so that's classifies as retro, for others that started with XT's and dos 3 Win9x is modern retro?
Some members haven't used anything earlier then XP, that just makes me feel old.

I count it from the date when support or manufacturing ended:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-01-27, 13:49:

For me it's retro if manufacturing and/or support have ended at least 10 years ago and vintage if a generation have grown up since it's manufacturing/support ended.

A 10 years old PC, even if high end is at best good for some browsing and some light office work. My previous daily driver just about turned 10 when I sold it in December. For gaming, the Phenom X6 CPU it had already couldn't launch some recent titles because of the lack of support for certain instruction sets. That's true for the Core2 CPUs as well I think. That doesn't mean they are interesting retro, just retro.

If I consider the prices, it's about 15 years when PC parts reach their low-point, but the price naturally influenced by rarity. The highest end parts, things like the 8800 Ultra and the Core2 Quad QX6700 are already climbing back as they become a collectible item. The performance category (8800GT, 9600GT, Q6600, E8500) are pretty much stuck on their low points for at least the next 10 years. Trash you can get out of office PCs like the various Pentium Dual Cores and GT210, 8400GS, 9400GT series will probably never gain value as the TNT2 M64, S3 Trio64 and the 90s Celerons never did.

And if it's a matter of age and weirdness, the Ageia PhysX accelerator cards are also about 15 years old (give or take a year or 2) and while they are just oddities with little to no practical value, they are moderately rare and the branded ones fly off the shelves.

I'm much more concerned about the future. Cloud shit, rolling release Windows, digital only games can easily kill retro gaming on contemporary hardware. GoG is light in the darkness with its DRM free library you can archive and play offline, but not everything releases there. 20 years from now when the GTX1080 Ti and Ryzen 7 1800X will be close to a quarter of a century old (the same age as the Voodoo II now), you really won't be able to do much with them beyond putting them in a display case. Unless you rely on pirated software.

As for software, it's much blurrier. Is Windows XP retro? Support has been completely cut, game launchers aren't working anymore, doesn't get browser updates, no drivers. So Windows 7, the developer ended its support, third parties are also leaving it behind. Games? The original 2006 Prey, the original 2005 Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Wolfenstein 2009 are stuff you can't legally buy and for some of them, retail copies are also rare and expensive. I'm hunting for an NFS:MW non-german, non-ea classics PC version that doesn't cost more than when it released for over a year now.

To me, if it's 64-bit and multi-core, it's not retro. Just old.

Just for the record....
My daily driver and everyday computer, is an Thinkpad X220 from 2011 running Ubuntu Mate. Works like a charm for everything non gaming related.
For my gaming need's, I am using Playstation 3, Playstation 2, RetroPIE, Commodore64, Amiga500/600, Nintendo Wii, Pentium3 (Win98 games) and 286/486/Pentium166 (Dos games).

chinny22 wrote on 2021-02-02, 13:17:

See this is what annoys me Technically vintage means anything over 20 years, anything younger is just old, outdated, obsolete b […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote on 2021-02-02, 12:48:

Vintage on the other hand, is to me a fully acceptable term to describe everything computing related. Yes, even Cor2Duo machines. Because they are outdated,

See this is what annoys me
Technically vintage means anything over 20 years, anything younger is just old, outdated, obsolete
but then as already mentioned we aren't using the term retro correctly either so your closer to correct definition then I am calling a S775 running Win98 a "Retro PC" so I can't say anything.

I fully agree the way we use retro here is more based on nostalgia then actual dates. Many members here first PC was Win95 based so that's classifies as retro, for others that started with XT's and dos 3 Win9x is modern retro?
Some members haven't used anything earlier then XP, that just makes me feel old.

Vintage and retro can be the exact same piece of technology, if the user is old enough. 😉

Hmmm.. Good example is Amiga - that is no more produced as being a pure retro hardware. In past I was playing many first released games (even those from 70's) so this makes me a witness of both hardware and software evolution almost from the beginning.
So imho retro means something that was released (both software/hardware) but due to time ticking and evolution it was abandoned due to customers expectations to get sth else near realistic (yep generation change too...) which gives them new hardware/software only. The problem is since ~2000 there's nothing new going on in computers... Not counting VR (maybe?). x86 is just... boring and we can describe new hardware in short term: "Hey! We managed to get 8000Mhz, 128 Cores, 512MB cache from this new CPU and it's working with DDR7 6000Mhz and Nvidia 10080Ti! I'm sure Doom 7 will run fluent ~ 120 fps!" ppl won't take it as a retro anymore just treat like old junk in next decades. As for games - they are short, all the same plot, aiming to give producers a lot of money... No unique ones. This market is overcause it's getting to flat! That's why we can't measure it in years anymore. EOT.

sf78 wrote on 2021-02-01, 12:37:

gerry wrote on 2021-02-01, 09:39:

the price curve, where the price gets to almost giveaway then slowly climbs and then suddenly skyrockets - the journey from old to vintage - it interests me, there's probably a huge (wasteful) period of throwing away of stuff just at that low point and then a few years later the surviving hardware is suddenly expensive and supply dips below the remaining demand)

It's hard for me to imagine that a P4 or an AMD XP would ever become desirable. They are 20 year old systems, but don't really create much interest. The reason for me is that you can pretty much do anything from 00's until today with a single (modern) PC and there is very little need for those 00-05 systems to exist anymore. Its a completely different thing when going back to Win 95 and DOS era unless you are emulating everything. The integration and backwards compatibility has really come far from the 80's and 90's. The experience of using a computer hasn't really changed since the 90's, it has only evolved slightly.

whilst what you say is true i really like that era - the last of the 32 bit cpus and the agp cards, the ultimate in the 'old' architecture of PCs before 64 bit, multi core and always online became normal. A late series P4 or A-XP is such a nice platform for a windows 98 / XP dual boot system for DOS all the way through mid 2000's software

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-02, 13:39:

I'm much more concerned about the future. Cloud shit, rolling release Windows, digital only games can easily kill retro gaming on contemporary hardware. GoG is light in the darkness with its DRM free library you can archive and play offline, but not everything releases there. 20 years from now when the GTX1080 Ti and Ryzen 7 1800X will be close to a quarter of a century old (the same age as the Voodoo II now), you really won't be able to do much with them beyond putting them in a display case. Unless you rely on pirated software.

I think the quotation "nostalgia ain't what it used to be" is going to be very true

barring various 'creative' methods of spoofing online contact and so on how will any of this current stuff work 20 years from now!?

gerry wrote on 2021-02-02, 15:00:

how will any of this current stuff work 20 years from now!?

it won't, unless something changes.