Younger folk are indeed more ignorant of where technology came from, but
i wouldn't say all of them are. I'm 32 years young and, well, i'm
posting this email on the mailing list, so that probably says enough.
Sure, the pool of those interested in old computer tech might be smaller
nowadays than it used to be, but then so is the pool of those interested
in Ford Model T's or gasoline powered Maytag washing machines, or steam
traction engines. But as long as stuff exists, there will be people
interested in tinkering with it. It's just that some tech is just not
relevant any more, so those exposed to it or used it in anger are going
to be fewer and far between.
It's OK to be concerned, but i don't think the retro computing scene is
as dire as some might make it out to be.
Cheers,
Josh Rice
On 19/05/2024 16:14, Tarek Hoteit via cctalk wrote:
A friend of a friend had a birthday gathering. Everyone there was in their
thirties, except for myself, my wife, and our friend. Anyway, I met a Google
engineer, a Microsoft data scientist, an Amazon AWS recruiter (I think she was
a recruiter), and a few others in tech who are friends with the party host. I
had several conversations about computer origins, the early days of computing,
its importance in what we have today, and so on. What I found disappointing and
saddening at the same time is their utmost ignorance about computing history or
even early computers. Except for their recall of the 3.5 floppy or early 2000’s
Windows, there was absolutely nothing else that they were familiar with. That
made me wonder if this is a sign that our living version of classical personal
computing, in which many of us here in this group witnessed the invention of
personal computing in the 70s, will stop with our generation. I assume that the
most engaging folks in this newsgroup are in their fifties and beyond. (No
offense to anyone. I am turning fifty myself) I sense that no other generation
following this user group's generation will ever talk about Altairs, CP/M s,
PDPs, S100 buses, Pascal, or anything deemed exciting in computing. Is there
hope, or is this the end of the line for the most exciting era of personal
computers? Thoughts?
Regards,
Tarek Hoteit
