[bimmer44]

Great article, thanks for posting. It makes me think about car detailers obsessing over paint matching for repairs on older vehicles. As a petrolhead I sometimes wonder to what extent there will be an equivalent collectors community of old PC hardware to the car community. Obviously there already is substantial interest in older PC's but if you compare the similarly widespread use of cars and computers I'd say that there are many more forums discussing old car maintenance, availability of very specialized detailing products for cars, marketplaces for collectible cars, concours for showing cars off etc. than there are for collecting/restoring PC's.

Maybe PC collecting, restoring etc. will be as big a deal but it's just early on the curve still. Or maybe the comparatively much higher steepness of the progress curve for PCs will prevent any sort of similar widespread enthusiasm for older stuff.

[eloisant]

There are people collecting and repairing 80's computers already.

I guess the biggest difference is that you can still use a collector car to go for a drive today, but on the other hand there is not much practical use to get from a collector computer. Sure, you can play old games, but most of the task you'd do with a modern computer can't be done with an old one (unlike cars).

[bimmer44]

I'm definitely not arguing there aren't people collecting these iconic old computers - just the mismatch between how many people have used computers daily for 20/30 years now and how few people seem to collect them. In my small-sized city in a small country there are maybe 25 car clubs I could be part of, specialist garages for just about every brand of car - even really niche shops that just do custom re-upholstery only for certain brands etc. Whereas for computers there's just a handful of people using the local auction and classified sites.

I think the reason you cite for the mismatch is the strongest one. If you're into collecting 80's BMWs you can still easily drive with a club including newer cars every weekend on the same roads, use the same petrol, easily get plugs, belts other parts etc. But an 80's PC is much more "stuck in time" and you need to be quite knowledgeable to maintain and enjoy in the same way.

[furyg3]

2-3 years ago I found my mom's old clamshell G3 iBook in her garage (from around 2000). Surprisingly it still booted up and worked great. I wanted to do some writing that trip and instead of using my own laptop which was full of distractions, I opted to use Word on the iBook. Which was also fun.

I saved my work as a text file on a USB stick, which was no problem bringing over to my modern Mac.

[whizzter]

It's gonna be interesting to see how well old USB ports will be supported in the long term with everyone rushing for thin machines with USB-C (sure you could buy a hub).

Back in 2000 my first laptop had a serial port and i bought a Wacom serial based tablet for it. A couple of years later that was gone and i had to buy a USB Wacom (that still works with win10 on modern machines!!). So for some other HW project i had to find a USB-Serial converter, so the question will be, are we really supporting the same old standards if we're forced to chase dongles?

[jfrunyon]

Meanwhile, on a system from the 80s, you wouldn't have a word processor, you wouldn't have support for any of the filesystems supported by modern OSes (well, maybe FAT?), and you wouldn't have USB anyway. Heck, you'd need either a serial port or a floppy drive on a modern computer in order to even have a chance of transferring data between them.

[scionthefly]

You wouldn't have a word processor? There's lots of word processors for CP/M, MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari, Tandy TRS-80, Tandy CoCo, not to mention proprietary machines like the Tandy 100/102/200 portables. A USB-Serial adapter works just fine. Or you can get a bluetooth or wifi modem that connects your old machine to the net.

[jfrunyon]

Where do you propose to get a copy of WordStar in 2020, pray tell?

[JKCalhoun]

For all those classic vintage computers there is someone selling a flash drive or similar mod that mimics a SCSI hard drive or floppy drive, etc.

[Someone]

You could hook up a Mac to the internet in 1985-ish, transferring files using telnet.

Mac OS still ships with BinHex (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BinHex), I think, so for Macs, that might already be the simplest way to exchange data between an early Mac and a modern machine (even if you have a floppy drive, does it read Mac disks?)

Edit: maybe my memory is of, and it was direct dial-up to another machine, not across the internet. NCSA Telnet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCSA_Telnet) supported TCP/IP before the OS did (yes, that was possible. I don’t know whether you still could do that on a modern system), though, so who knows?

[swiftcoder]

> supported TCP/IP before the OS did (yes, that was possible. I don’t know whether you still could do that on a modern system), though, so who knows?

In general you can. If the OS lets you open raw sockets, you can implement TCP and all yourself in userspace. Although in those days, I'm guessing it was actually implementing the entire AT modem stack too, and just driving the modem directly via a serial port.

[jfrunyon]

> You could hook up a Mac to the internet in 1985-ish, transferring files using telnet.

I'm sure you could. In 1985-ish.

How much of the required hardware still exists? How much of the required software can you find? Is that software (or another version of it) also compatible with your modern computer? etc.

[VLM]

wordstar released in '78 and was insanely popular until the 90s when ms-word mostly took over.

[tonyarkles]

Also WordPerfect for DOS! We had an old XT that was "my" computer, and I did a lot of homework on it. Pretty sure it was WP5.1, which would have come out in '89, which matches the timeline pretty well (I think we got that computer around '92 or so).

[jfrunyon]

And these days no one would have the slightest clue how to use it if they could even find it.

[wrycoder]

And Xywrite in between. It was great (and still is).

[TonyTrapp]

At least in Germany, I think you can absolutely compare the usage of retro computers to the usage of retro cars. Noone uses their retro car for day-to-day business. They maybe use it to drive out on a warm summer day, but not to go to work. Just like how you'd use a retro computer in your spare time to enjoy some classic games and not to post on Hacker News or get actual work done.

Technically, sure, you can use your retro car every day. But most people don't, probably because it would be less practical and also lower the value of the car over time.

[bombcar]

I think one of the reasons the retro car thing is so huge in the USA is that the cars STILL EXIST on the road - there are (poor) people using ancient cars as daily drivers, so when the desire comes to find a retro vehicle, they're out there and available and cheap.

Not so much with old computers - NOBODY, not even the poor in the USA, are trying to make do with a 8086 as a daily computer. Phones and better computers are simply too cheap and available.

[hnlmorg]

Are car licenses (whatever you want to call it) more lax in the US? In the UK it is more expensive running old cars because there's an annual "Ministry of Transport test" (which is broadly just referred to as "MOT") with really strict regulations. If your car fails it then it's not road legal.

I remember from my trips to America that even some of the well maintained cars there wouldn't have been legal in the UK. For example some didn't have orange indicators, instead using the red break lights as an indicator.

[bombcar]

Most states actually make it CHEAPER to use an older car - for example, California does NOT require smog checks on cars made before 1975.

A very few states have a more stringent "inspection" but it mainly checks that the car has working lights and brakes - nothing like an actual costly check.

The USA doesn't even mandate daytime running lights as far as I know.

[drewzero1]

Some states also have 'classic' registration which (in WI at least) is paid once and lasts as long as you own the vehicle. It's more expensive up front than a regular yearly registration, but once it's done it's done. It also carries additional restrictions befitting the intended operation of a 'classic' (e.g., owner must also have a regularly registered vehicle, not allowed to drive in January, hauling restrictions if it's a truck) which make it cheaper only as a second vehicle.

The rules are designed to apply to vehicles being preserved, and are a help to hobbyists who can afford to own two or more cars. They seem to be designed - for better or worse - to exclude people who happen to rely on an older car as their only vehicle.

[HPsquared]

For classic cars the UK is similar: anything over 40 years old is exempt from the annual MOT inspection.

[hakfoo]

Aside from that, the license tax is often scaled to the vehicle value.

A new $25k sedan here (Arizona) costs like $350 or so per year to license, but a 40-year-old one worth $700 scrap value costs like $30.

[perardi]

Depends on the state. And even depends where in the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Unit...

For example, I’m from Illinois, and you only have to have an emissions test in the Chicago and East St. Louis regions. I grew up near Peoria, where you can seemingly drive whatever disgusting uranium-and-coal-fired jalopy you want.

[opencl]

It depends on the state, some do annual emissions and/or safety inspections and require failed vehicles to get fixed. But a lot will just let you drive nearly anything.

[dharmab]

Depends in the state and county. Some require both an emissions and safety check, but the safety is far less strict than the MOT. Some only require emissions testing. In some cases no testing is required at all, e.g. niche vehicles like motorcycles and conversion kits for SxS ATVs.

[hnlmorg]

Exactly this. It's better to think of said hardware as toys and not tools.

[tyingq]

You can find a lot of posts with people successfully using cream hair bleach and UV lights to restore 80's PCs. They call it "retrobrighting". One resource: https://powercc.org/retrobright/

[timbit42]

It's usually spelled retr0brighting, including on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retr0bright

[hnlmorg]

People already collect and restore computers. Retro gaming and retro computing is a big scene already. However most IBM-clone towers aren't worth restoring because they're common, not particularly powerful and thus cheap to come by. Much like how a 1990s Ford Escort is going to fetch less interest than a Jaguar from the same era.

[bimmer44]

This is also a really good point - I was specifically thinking of PC's in my point above and you're right there is a lot more interest in old gaming systems. Maybe part of it is also the emotional connection and what does or doesn't have it, there are definitely a lot of old cars no one is collecting! Nassim Taleb's "graveyard of silent evidence" at play in my first comment.

[ryanmercer]

>Maybe PC collecting, restoring etc. will be as big a deal but it's just early on the curve still

It is a fairly big deal for a lot of us, just in this room I'm sitting in I've got 3 vintage machines from the late 70s to early 80s, and 3 generations of Windows machines (95, 98, XP), alongside my work and personal computers. There are vintage computer fairs the world around, there are vintage computer clubs (ours here in the general Indy area meets monthly) the world around, there are numerous podcasts and some sizable YouTube content creators too.

There is even a healthy level of developing new software and hardware for vintage computers and consoles.

https://atariage.com/ is a quick look at (mostly, but not exclusively) Atari related for example. Then you have

YouTube creators like:

- LGR https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLx053rWZxCiYWsBETgdKrQ

- Gaming Historian https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbvPS_rXp4PC21PG2k1UVg

- Modern Vintage Gamer https://www.youtube.com/c/ModernVintageGamer

- Adrian's Digital Basement https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE5dIscvDxrb7CD5uiJJOiw

- 8Bit Guy https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww

- Nostalgia Nerd https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7qPftDWPw9XuExpSgfkmJQ

- This Does Not Compute https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp20NgOZHmgWdbQdHSxgjw

- Noel's Retro Lab https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2-SP1bYi3ueKlVU7I75wFw

- RMC - The Cave https://www.youtube.com/user/RetroManCave

- My Life in Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/mylifeingaming

etc. A lot of the above channels have videos restoring vintage hardware, or doing dream builds with vintage hardware.

Podcasts like:

- ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/

- Floppy Days Vintage Computing Podcast https://floppydays.libsyn.com/

- Amigos Retro Gaming Network https://player.fm/series/amigos-retro-gaming-network-amigos-...

- Retro Computing Roundtable http://rcrpodcast.com/

- Sprite Castle https://podcast.robohara.com/category/spritecastle/

- RetroMacCast https://retromaccast.libsyn.com/

etc

Hardware and software developers/stores like:

- https://retroradionics.co.uk/ (bought a brand spankin' new Joystick for my Atari machines from them in December, it's very nice)

- https://atariage.com/store/ (you say you want to play Halo on your 2600?)

- https://lotharek.pl/

- https://www.atarimax.com/

- https://newstuffforoldstuff.com/index.py

etc

There is also a very healthy vintage computer preservation community on the Internet Archive - preserving magazines, zines, newsletters, manuals, schematics, software, etc.

- https://archive.org/details/vintagesoftware

- https://archive.org/details/atari_2600_library

- https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_c64

- https://archive.org/details/commodore_c64_manuals

etc.

[ffwd]

Great list thanks, I love LGR.

If you don't mind my asking - do you know any channels or places that do full longplays of games on original hardware with no emulation? I try my best to find walkthroughs on games on youtube but they very rarely specify that it is using the original hardware. And Xbox og/360 longplays are the easiest because they haven't been emulated properly so almost all videos are on the hardware afaik.

Looking for 1997-2006 PC gaming and PS1/PS2. I guess I just like videos that aren't emulated and people like LGR only provide clips:P

[timbit42]

I've heard of people doing this on Twitch.tv but I'm not sure how many are using emulators.

[mparramon]

Don't forget foone: https://twitter.com/Foone

>Hardware / software necromancer, collector of Weird Stuff, maker of Death Generators. (they/them)

Their threads about obscure hardware are always a joy to read.

[masswerk]

I may add the Retro Computing Forum (unofficial successor to the G+ groups "Retro Computing" and "Computer History"):

https://retrocomputingforum.com/

[timbit42]

Here are some more retro-computing/gaming channels:

8-Bit Show and Tell: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3gRBswFkuteshdwMZAQafQ

8-Bit Show and Tell 2: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAgWzEh5c8391eJnELDy9OA

Ms. MadLemon: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSlMemxuBOFu6Rz_Al02nHQ

Retr0b1ts: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnua6gZFiw77kxwNChkXGuw

Tech Time Traveler: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0UflzOybq16vw7b638_-pg

GroundhogGrafix Retro: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC69FZpaObtyLkOoupq5ocPw

Jan Beta: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftUpOO4h9EgH0eDOZtjzcA

Vintage Computer Federation: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKdBVD2wVUkuJQZhxGvVr0Q

Brian's Man Cave: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCox4nRDv3CMfTsz5drF64lg

Kay Savetz: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgtj2VfQ6MvKRn3Gr_OGykA

tschak909: https://www.youtube.com/user/tschak909/featured

10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSWXB7cc8mAtCjK8iXAJc1A

8-Bit and More: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmyydM9_kZHk49GXC4r-FKw

Retro Recollections: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoxB8deF5Z_mV1U7ey4tszA

Modern Classic: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoLccjs6jbHa4soeYDgbKTg

Dan Wood: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4nYiUwSqo220UNT1xrpZ_Q

Todd's Nerd Cave: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh8xnRFb7pkMOj50QtDVkgg

Digilogue Collection: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HbC_nq8t1S9l7qGYL0mTA

Amiga Love: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_RmsVU5hpLoHXgmzKav4Gg

The Modern Atari 8-Bit Computer: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmzjD_biYJ5hQf-MoK9Ztcw

8-Bit Keys: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcTt3O4_IW5gnA0c58eXshg

Mind Flare Retro: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBbbiZC2YodIp2Pi-lywG-A

hellfire64: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwxHPs5AGBwzXQHjSUS1wHA