Anything up to 64-bit has been on topic over the life of this list. Though 64-bit initially was pushing it, less so now, as I’d definitely consider something like a Sun Ultra 2, or DEC Alpha to be very much on topic. I definitely participated in discussions of early Macintosh systems back around ’97. I doubt I participated much (if at all) in discussions of early PC’s. I’ve always viewed discussion of off-topic PC’s to be of more interest, though I am starting to look at vintage PC’s a bit differently (simply due to wanting to still access some vintage software, and needing to move off Parallels Desktop on my Mac).
While I probably wouldn’t want to participate in a discussion of them, I’d argue that a “Willamette” Pentium 4 is sufficiently vintage, and something of an odd-ball today. Same with any PPC based Mac. While I have Intel based Mac’s that are 10+ old, I don’t consider them to be classic, especially as one is still in nearly daily use. I like your proposal of, "don't bring up boring modern topics that have a better home somewhere else." Having seen another of your posts, I’m left to wonder how many of us had our eyes opened by this list back in 1997. In my case having worked on some systems decidedly “vintage” systems, prior to joining the list helped spark my interest. That and my love of Operating Systems. I want to say that I found the list after picking up my first couple vintage computers, back when you could find them at Goodwill cheap. Zane > On Dec 21, 2022, at 11:58 AM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk > <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > This list was never declared to be exclusively an 8-bit affair. I'm not > sure where you're getting that from. From the get go in 1997 when Bill > Whitson founded the list, all computers of a vintage or obsolete nature > were game for discussion. It's only after a few years and time marching on > with its inevitable technological progress, and companies that were once > industry stalwarts started to fall by the wayside, that we began to > question what the cut-off is. And as far as the IBM PC, it was definitely > vintage by the time the list was launched. The objections back in the day > as I remember them were to questions pertaining to modern x86 or Macintosh > systems that had plenty of forums elsewhere on the internet to engage in > discussions of those (i.e. this is not a tech support forum) (...unless > it's vintage tech). These days, however, I think it's fine to discuss > 286/386/486 and even Pentium (below the II, at least) systems because > they're sufficiently "vintage" now in the sense of the word that I think > brings focus to the purpose and nature of this hobby. > > In the interest of putting this thread to rest, if I were to call the rule, > I'd make it simple: don't bring up boring modern topics that have a better > home somewhere else. > > And with that, I hope we can move on, or at least morph this thread into a > more interesting topic. > > Sellam
