this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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retrocomputing

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Just how old qualifies as retro computing?

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[–] fratermus@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

most of our discussions here are centered on Jacquard looms

[–] Doombot1@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Luddite gang

[–] cthulhu@emacs.ch 5 points 1 year ago

@dekkzz76 @retrocomputing Colossus, definitely. Maybe ENIAC 😼

Fun fact: Actually had a play with the Colossus rebuild at Bletchly Park 😊

[–] cognitivegears@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 year ago

This is a great question with no definitive answer 🙂 There are a number of ways of looking at it, though the ultimate answer is whatever each person considers retro. A few general ways to look at it include:

  1. whatever was around when you were a kid. Of course, this depends wildly on who you are asking - for me this would include the Tandy Color Computer / Commodore 64 era through 486 PCs (or so.) For other people this could be a little older or much newer of course.

  2. Some fixed definition like (anything before the year 2000 or no PCs etc.) I’m not a huge fan of this personally as it leaves some people out.

  3. Any computer old enough that a single person could fully understand it’s workings and diagnose/repair problems etc. This generally includes 8 and some 16 bit systems. I’ve increasingly come to prefer this view because beyond nostalgia it also helps define something that I believe is a significant benefit to these systems.

[–] sqw@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago
[–] jmcunx@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Normally I would say anything over 10 years old. But due to how 10 year old computers are fully useable, I am thinking anything with 1 core. Maybe in a few years it could be ones without a TMP2 :)

[–] dekkzz76@emacs.ch 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@jmcunx

i've got a pentium-m thinkpad x32 running debian 12 with msata /root drive & a CF card /home, circa 2006

so it's officially retro ;)

#ThinkPad #PentiumM

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