On 7/1/2016 11:48 AM, Ian Finder wrote:
The original iMac is old enough to vote... And besides, I don't think drawing a chronological line in the sand is necessarily sensible. Just don't violate the spirit of classic computing? (A G5 tower that you run Linux on is not classic computing, for instance) Likewise there are Packard Bell X86 older than that iMac, that would qualify by most age limits I'd expect to be imposed, but that I'd cringe at seeing discussed here. If you post your Mattel HotWheels PC here, it might be worth getting irritated. But there is no upgrade path from classic MacOS, and it's not X86, so I'd say it has far more of a place here than the constant 30+ message modern-OS RANT threads I'm constantly subjected to on here. - Ian
Computers don't (yet) have voting rights. :-)
But you're defining "spirit" and listing criteria by which a machine is appropriate or not. A PS/2 with an 80386 running Windows 3.1 is acceptable, whereas a Packard Bell with an 80386 running Windows 3.1 is not. Yeah, you and I would cringe at a PB being discussed, but maybe there's someone out there who really is fond of their PB.
So as Terry ("Tezza") acknowledges, terms like "landmark," "classic," "collectible" are subjective (but I don't think "vintage" is subjective -- that term is usually set by age alone).
This is why it's just easier to use a single criteria -- age -- and leave it at that. Why is age acceptable everywhere else in collecting, but not here? Otherwise, someone (the list owner?) has to pontificate over a list of acceptable computers. Good luck with that.
- J.
