...I suppose.
I'm sitting on the porch.
I'm not typing on my oldest laptop, but it's not my newest, either. It's an old PowerBook G3. A "Wall Street". A laptop computer that could reasonably be picked up for $100 on ebay. Another couple of bucks for a PCMCIA WiFi card, and I'm in business.
In its day, the Wall Street was top of the line. A racehorse, available with a huge active matrix display, a big, comfortable, full-function keyboard, and unbelievable battery life, even if you didn't yank your CD ROM drive and replace it with a second battery. You know what? It still has all that.
What do you need a computer to do?
Watch DVD movies?
Play massively-multiplayer online shoot-em-ups?
Run a gargantuan, bloated, OS full of tons of crap you'll likely never use?
Then an old machine is probably not the answer for you.
On the other hand, if (like most people) all you need is a machine that will allow you to surf your favorite message boards, blog, write, email, and even play the games you loved five, ten, or fifteen years ago, then there are literally thousands upon thousands of computers out there just waiting to be saved from the landfill. Desktops and laptops waiting to be bought for $100, $50, or just taken off someone's hands. Computers that will do everything you need them to do.
The same thing can be said about so many other things in the planned-obsolescence world of consumer electronics. Tetris on a black & white Gameboy or Space Invaders on an Atari 2600 are just as fun now as they were the first time you played them. Heck, a couple of weeks ago, I saw kids lining up at an arcade to put quarters into a Pac Man machine, anxious to play a game that was "old" before they were born...
This is going to be a blog about archaeology, about paleontology, about fossils. Digital fossils. But like some Jurassic Park dream come true, these fossils can be brought back to life.
I hope you enjoy the ride. :)
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4 comments:
From a fellow geek, gamer, & gunowner who's currently on a nostalgic trip through Wasteland, Fallout 1 & 2, Syberia 1 & 2, and Longest Journey, consider yourself Bookmarked.
Once upon a time I thought I might have an old computer collection. Then I realized I didn't have room. Now I have a CPU collection. The absolute prizes of said collection you ask? (I knew you would!) AMD made 8088 and 8086 CPUs, copyright intel in 1978.
I'm not into Apples so much, but I do like me some Digital Fossils!
I look forward to reading this new blog about old 'puters!
Šhard
Old computers ? Even the term is new when you've got 78rpm records in your collection.
However, I enjoy listening to your geek talk, even though I only understand about 15% of it.
Besides, as my father once told me "Any women who can handle a gun well is beautiful".
Mike
Heh,
I just gave my 11 year old nephew a woodgrain 6 switch "heavy-sixer" Atari 2600 from 1979 and some games. Much to his mother's chagrin, he now spends all his time playing Ms. Pac-man, Frogger, and Donkey Kong. His PS3 sits collecting dust in the corner.
Oddly enough his favorite game isn't one of the more well known arcade knock-offs. It's Missile Command.
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