The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-08-30, 08:37:

Windows XP is hardly usable nowadays, because a lot of workarounds required (especially for Windows XP 64-bit) and you're stuck with old hardware. Oldest Microsoft OS which works fine for now is Windows 7, but that will end next year.

Any Windows is hardly usable nowadays. New versions are not yet supported, old version are already not supported. On the other hand, for some certain purposes you may use even MS-DOS 3.3 without any problems.

So, in my opinion it's not about software, it's about hardware. When warranty period is expired it is a junk. No matter what software you will install on it, it may fail any given second.

for some certain purposes you may use even MS-DOS 3.3 without any problems.

Launch the nukes!

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-08-30, 09:40:

for some certain purposes you may use even MS-DOS 3.3 without any problems.

Launch the nukes!

If any of Microsoft products is involved in control of nukes, we are in big trouble.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-08-30, 09:45:

If any of Microsoft products is involved in control of nukes, we are in big trouble.

Don't be afraid. If Russian nukes are not stolen, they are managed by stolen software.

Retro for me are systems and components that are no longer manufactured and are worth repairing or rebuilt in the community. They allow an experience (including bugs, problems and typical compatibility chalanges) that is not possible on current hardware without emulation.

I love the 90s from 386 to Slot1/A.

PC-Engineer wrote on 2022-08-30, 10:41:

Retro for me are systems and components that are no longer manufactured and are worth repairing or rebuilt in the community. They allow an experience (including bugs, problems and typical compatibility chalanges) that is not possible on current hardware without emulation.

I love the 90s from 386 to Slot1/A.

We think pretty same. To me Socket 370, Socket 478, Socket A and everything later are too boring. Two CPU/GPU vendors or choose from. Just an old slow PC, not much fun.

You guys have some interesting definitions.
"Vintage" is just a polite way of saying something is old (and implying it has value so some sucker will pay more for it). Retro. Vintage. Obsolete. Old. It's all the same shit to me.

Anything that doesn't run relatively current software at an acceptable speed falls into this category.

My current desktop PC was built in 2011 (same motherboard and CPU, only upgraded RAM). It still runs 95% of pretty much all available software.
Back in the olden days, if your PC was a couple years out of date, software would run so slow it was basically ususable or didn't run at all.
These days it takes longer for old systems to become obsolete.

Well yeah, you can still use overclocked Sandy Bridge charged with 32 Gb RAM. Especially HEDT ones.

I would say retro computers are mainly 1990’s computers. And IBM AT computers from 1980’s

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-29, 20:23:

The question is - when retro becomes retro?

roughly 15-20 years old in computing tech terms, a moving and fuzzy point over time. some variations for tech events like the (mass) move to 64 bit OSes, these create sort-of boundaries not obvious at the time but useful later on as proxies for 'is it retro yet?'

but actually it is very subjective and defies a rigid definition

This really gets me thinking actually.

I mean, I was driven to retro or vintage hardware because, despite all my best and many efforts, they were simply the best way, with the least hassle, to play the games I wanted. And I was dragged to that conclusion kicking and screaming. I just got endlessly beaten down by every old game I wanted to play requiring it's own unique combination of fan patches, source ports, dgVoodoo2, sometimes VMs, sometimes Emulators. And despite all that enormous effort, the experience was often still subpar, and would get broken out from under me due to Software as a Service fucking with Windows or my drivers, etc.

Where as every retro computer I've built, after I've built it, just fucking works. I can not touch it for 6 months or 3 years, and when I want to fire up a Quake mission pack I just got, it just works. No hassles.

As for the last 10 years of computing, I'm not sure what the future looks like for them. Thanks to Games as a Service, how many releases you may find yourself nostalgic for will even have servers still running? And if they do still have servers, will they have been updated to such a degree that they wouldn't run on the period correct hardware they first released on? To say nothing of them having mutated into a form that defies your nostalgic expectations. You do have a lot of single player, offline Indie games, but basically if it targets at least DirectX9, it'll probably run on everything for the next 10 years.

So given that my perspective is "It's the software, stupid", I'm not sure what software will be around in 10 years that will run best on period appropriate 2020 era hardware. So I'm not sure Ryzen CPUs or RTX cards will have that same vintage allure that a Doom capable 90's DOS machine might. Or a Win9x machine that handles the vast swath of games from 1997 through approximately 2002.

Well, that's not true. if RTX goes the way of Glide I can see it. If Nvidia drops RTX, or goes bankrupt, or whatever, and the only GPUs that can run RTX Minecraft in 10 years were made between 2019 and 2024, people might find themselves being nostalgic as fuck for RTX.

in my opinion you focus only on the age aspect when the historical period and the innovations and what could be done or not done before is more important. It is not for nothing that the 90s are called the golden era. Before the 286, computers had little computational capabilities and in any case the difference between various systems did not allow for much. Then in the 386 and above all i486 they allowed to make an advancement of the graphics and of the enormous possibilities, from the pentium2 onwards instead the perceived difference was less important in all fields. Compare even just the sound cards, the advancement they had of the first adlib up to the SB16, then afterwards everything is practically indistinguishable. In my opinion, after 2000, even in 50 years, systems will always be old and will never have a soul, a history and an importance like the years 1990-1999.

skimming through most the comments, there's something that everyone can agree on. That is just because something is old doesn't make it desirable it just makes it old shit.

Something has to be good and old and have something about it that makes it useful, looks matter too. Then you could assign some sort of value based off of that.

Namrok wrote on 2022-08-30, 20:48:

You do have a lot of single player, offline Indie games, but basically if it targets at least DirectX9, it'll probably run on everything for the next 10 years.

As I said, new Ryzen is just an old Ryzen on higher Frequency (with higher power consumption) - we are stuck. And new GPU - is an old GPU with more pipelines. And you cannot simply enter into this market now, it requires billions of investitions.

So if we don't grow as fast and have only two major players we don't have something disappearing and unsupported anymore. Until x86 architecture switches something like Arm at least.

And from nostalgic perspectives - computers are not rare anymore. Everybody have them. You don't feel nostalgic about your fridge or washing machine - friends don't come to see them or play with them. Computers became the same thing 😀

rkurbatov wrote:

Until x86 architecture switches something like Arm at least.

"ARM" and "x86" are mostly meaningless concepts in modern CPUs.

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-31, 08:05:

Everybody have them. You don't feel nostalgic about your fridge or washing machine - friends don't come to see them or play with them. Computers became the same thing 😀

Perhaps others wouldn't want to come to play with them, but vintage home appliances are definitely a thing. I for one have a soft spot for late 70s/early 80s appliances that have fake wood accents and come in amazing shades like snot green, piss yellow and poopy brown.
I also really have a thing for old Toshiba microwaves.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2022-09-01, 13:33:

Perhaps others wouldn't want to come to play with them, but vintage home appliances are definitely a thing. I for one have a so […]
Show full quote

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-08-31, 08:05:

Everybody have them. You don't feel nostalgic about your fridge or washing machine - friends don't come to see them or play with them. Computers became the same thing 😀

Perhaps others wouldn't want to come to play with them, but vintage home appliances are definitely a thing. I for one have a soft spot for late 70s/early 80s appliances that have fake wood accents and come in amazing shades like snot green, piss yellow and poopy brown.
I also really have a thing for old Toshiba microwaves.

a good point, and in fact many people do like 'retro' and vintage appliances, just look for them on youtube and there are channels for old radios, tvs, cookers and more

the difference, perhaps, is that an old microwave can still prepare food very well by modern standards - while an old 286 isn't going to play youtube vids (well, i'm guessing not!)

I feel like the 20 year old tech rule some people mentioned is the way to go , younger following generations will come to find stuff people use now retro in the future and it will keep shifting while interest in stuff before that wanes as older generations die off.
Of course the older stuff will still be retro but people might nostalgize more over a windows 10 pc and not be as familiar with say a pc running dos 6.22 or win95.

The newer generations will have a real hard time to play the games or use the programs they are playing/using now in the future.
Everything is online and cloud based today. They wont even have a copy of the game/program they played when a service shuts down...
Everything needs authentification servers to be alive...
Sad times.

Even some Hardware will refuse to work when the cloud says no or is no longer existent.

Smart devices will most likely end up as perfectly working landfill material.

Everything needs authentification servers to be alive...

It's like GOG and cracking scene does not exist, sheesh.