Reply 80 of 166, by Blitz_25
There's more than black an white to retro and vintage computing. First we must distinct this two terms that we all use for the same as they describe different things and the way we think about and use old software and hardeware as in the end most of us use our systems to run this old programs albait there is a great thrill for many of us to build , thinker and maintain our old and not so old hardware as well.
First general group that i fall in to as well is of the vintage presuation an here you'll find people that like to work and play with period-correct hardware. We try to maintain and repair our old hardware for as long as possible and here lies the problem as everything has its life span so eventually we wont be able to fix our old gear when it fails or get adequate replacement anymore. There are strides taken in to replicating and cloning old hardware however to recreate periodcorrect hardware we will be limited in the end by obtainig genuine IC's as they aren't produced anymore and we're allready hampered by lack of old new stock so canibalizing old parts will be a must. One could also argue that cloning an old harware part falls already in to retro branch of our hobby.
So here we have retro group that is not so hardware orintated anymore but software instead and they are happy as long as they can run their favorit old software on any hardware regardles if it's period correct in native or virtual/emulation. They use lga775 systems for dos/win98 enviorments or use VM's on latest highend system and they dont care about it as long as they can run their favorite software. And retro group has a bright future whit everevolving new hardware and software powerfull enough to emulate an mimic old hardware to the letter.
Also for most of us the meaning of vintage hardware is anything pre lga775 or AM2 based and runing winXP or older OS but in 10 years systems we now think as of absolete and junkready will become vintage and of use to someone who would want to play games of win7 era that would not run on their latest win20 edition.