Subject: Future uncollectable computers...

From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Jul 17 15:13:02 2003

Hopefully this isn't too off-topic, but a thought just occured to me
about computers that some may, or may not, want to collect in the
future, which aren't classics yet.  It seems that many of the newer
computers have been designed with uncollectability, as well as a high
degree of user-annoyance, in mind.  Somehow, either some marketing
idiots, or clueless enginers, got the idea to design computer
equipment that's unstackable due to its rounded-off shape... the iMacs
and some Compaq PeeCees (e.g. Presario 4814) come to mind.  Is anyone
going to be seriously interested in collecting computer equipment that
can't be stacked, and does anyone actually find equipment that can't
be stacked, or have anything stacked on top of it (not even a monitor
or books, etc), to be other than an annoyance?

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

---

From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 13:27:00 2003

Being stackable has nothing to do with being collectible.

The only major problem with collecting newer computers 10+ years from now is
that they are made so crappy that finding one in usable condition will be a
problem. The Imac tends to have power supply and overheating problems. Most
of the newer processors run very hot and will tend to die quicker then older
processors.

Apple found that if they made colorfull rounded computers people would buy
them because they were tired of beige boxes, then the other computer makers
followed. Its just like ford and the rounded taurus.

I like whats under the hood, not what it looks like. If its nice looking and
has interesting hardware thats a plus.

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From: steve <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 13:34:07 2003

I don't see the connection, many 70's computers aren't
stackable, including all the single board "no case"
computers. In addition, you can make any unstackable
computer stackable by putting it in a box. Personally,
none of my computers are stack, so its not a problem
for me, my computers are all on their own shelfs (Home
Depot adjustable shelves, from 5 to 12 shelves from
floor to ceiling to accommodate various sized
computers). Manuals and books are stack in boxes
though.

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From: Mail List <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 14:05:39 2003

Hello Robert,

 > due to its rounded-off shape

This design style has come into practice in the design of many products like
portable boom boxes, etc. and even more recently designed automobiles have
more rounded, and less angular or rectangular, designs. Doesn't do much for
me either.

Best Regards

---

From: "Bill Sudbrink" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 14:33:37 2003

> Is anyone going to be seriously interested in collecting
> computer equipment that can't be stacked, and does anyone
> actually find equipment that can't be stacked, or have
> anything stacked on top of it (not even a monitor or books,
> etc), to be other than an annoyance?

Well, a lot of the early integrated keyboard designs (my own
favorite, Ohio Scientific, C1, C2 and C4 models), even though
you can put a monitor on them, are still a pain.  Fortunately,
the OSI integrated keyboard models have flat sides and will
balance nicely on them, so you can store them on a shelf in
that orientation.  The pain is that, in factory configuration,
there are no external connectors on the floppy cables.  You
have to disassemble the unit to detach the floppy drives.  I
sometimes daydream about some kind of shelving/storage system
that could efficiently accommodate all of the odd sizes and still
provide better access than packed-in-a-box. (I also daydream
about renting/owning a floor of an office building and having
everything set up and running.)

---

From: Fred Cisin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 14:48:53 2003

> more rounded, and less angular or rectangular, designs. Doesn't do much for

They don't stack well either.

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon Jul 21 14:57:43 2003

> future, which aren't classics yet.  It seems that many of the newer

It does worry me that there's not a single microcomputer system made 
today that I actually want to own....

> equipment that's unstackable due to its rounded-off shape... the iMacs

This is a problem, albeit a minor one (you can always fit shelves, etc 
round the stupidly-shaped machines so as to put other things on top). I 
do wonder, actually, if the shape is designed to prevent the user from 
stacking stuff on top of the machine and blocking the cooling vents, etc.

More of a problem is that modern machines are plain unrepairable. Spares 
are unavailable even now (when the machine is in production -- you try 
getting an ASIC for an Imac or similar...), so %deity knows what it'll be 
like in 10 years time. Technical manuals don't exist. The chances of 
being able to keep these machines running is minimal :-(

-tony

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:10:01 2003

> today that I actually want to own....

There is one microcomputer I would love to have.  The Power Mac G5.

Peace...  Sridhar

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From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:17:22 2003

> There is one microcomputer I would love to have.  The Power Mac G5.

One of those certainly would be useful for the music and sound
synthesis software that won't run on my fastest, older, Power Mac,
although the machine would be more enjoyable if it resembled a
PDP-11/45, was built mostly from TTL ICs and came with schematics,
firmware sources and OS sources.  If I ever acquire one of those Power
Mac G5s, I'll probably apply a hacksaw to the handles on the top of
the case so that it will be a stackable machine upon which other
equipment, books, papers, tools, etc. can be stacked while it's in
use. :-)

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:23:14 2003

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, R. D. Davis wrote:

> One of those certainly would be useful for the music and sound synthesis
> software that won't run on my fastest, older, Power Mac, although the
> machine would be more enjoyable if it resembled a PDP-11/45, was built
> mostly from TTL ICs and came with schematics, firmware sources and OS
> sources.  If I ever acquire one of those Power Mac G5s, I'll probably
> apply a hacksaw to the handles on the top of the case so that it will be
> a stackable machine upon which other equipment, books, papers, tools,
> etc. can be stacked while it's in use. :-)

If it were built from TTL IC's, would it still be a microcomputer?

Peace...  Sridhar

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From: "Ernest" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:24:42 2003

Does the new Commodore-One count as vintage, or is it considered new? That
is a system that I consider to be collectable already. Also the round little
iMac with the flat screen.

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From: Cameron Kaiser <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:28:18 2003

> There is one microcomputer I would love to have.  The Power Mac G5.

Me too. Need some bucks though, and a good excuse to dump the dual G4
I already own. ;-)

-- 
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
 Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * [email-masked]
-- FORTUNE: You're wise, but not wise enough not to read this sort of drivel. -

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From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:31:16 2003

> Me too. Need some bucks though, and a good excuse to dump the dual G4

Just tell us which dumpster you're going to dump it into!  To save you
the trouble of dumping it somewhere, surely someone on the list will
make a free pickup. :-)

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:38:42 2003

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, Cameron Kaiser wrote:

> > > > Hopefully this isn't too off-topic, but a thought just occured to
> > > > me about computers that some may, or may not, want to collect in
> > > > the future, which aren't classics yet.  It seems that many of the
> > > > newer
> > >
> Me too. Need some bucks though, and a good excuse to dump the dual G4 I
> already own. ;-)

As far as I'm concerned, the G5 is enough excuse to sell a G4.  8-)  It's
schweeeeet.

Peace...  Sridhar

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From: "John Allain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:48:07 2003

> There is one microcomputer I would love to have.  The Power Mac G5.

Can you convince the rest of us?  Does OS/X render all the earlier 
Macs obsolete?  Why would somebody need a G5?

John A.

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From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:51:03 2003

It will make g4 machines dirt cheap as the herd sells them off to buy the
G5.

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From: "John Allain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:55:27 2003

> It will make g4 machines dirt cheap as 
>         ** the herd **
> sells them off...

Wasn't it Apple themselves that made the "Lemmings" 
commercial featuring people marching off a cliff in unison?
Things change... Oh Well.
I like to think that I think for myself and so far nobody 
has made (much) of a case for the G5.

John A.

---

From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:56:55 2003

If your a current mac user the g5 WILL be alot faster then what you have, if
your an Intel user I dont see a rush to buy anything made by apple. If your
a unix geek you might want a G5 just to say you own one and make fellow
geeks unworthy of your presence.

The funny thing is mac users who laugh at PC guys upgrading their hardware
every year are now doing the same thing, except its alot more costly for
them buying complete new machines while PC users just chuck the
motherboard/ram/video card in their old rig. This upgrade cycle of hardware
will eventually kill the mac market because only the very rich can keep up.
What percentage of mac owners are using OSX? What percentage will upgrade to
a current OSX running machine anytime soon?

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From: "Zane H. Healy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 15:58:23 2003

>has made (much) of a case for the G5.

For those of us with the very early G4's and older, a G5 would be an awsome upgrade.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, I have one of the original G4/450's, it's almost 4 years old, and it's starting to feel a bit slow.  I mainly have speed problems in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, and when compiling something.  Actually I wouldn't mind speeding up mailbox operations in Eudora either (the OS X version is a lot slower than the old classic version I was using).

On the G5, the combination of Hypertransport, faster RAM (PC3200 DDR vs. PC100 SDRAM), AGP 8x vs. AGP 2x, SATA vs. ATA66, USB 2.0 vs. USB 1.1, a 4x DVD-R/W drive, and lastly a significantly faster processor (or two significantly processors) make for a very good case for me upgrading.  However, I'll be limping along with my G4/450 for probably at least another year.

			Zane

-- 
--
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| [email-masked] (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
|                                  | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |

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From: "Erik S. Klein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 16:02:19 2003

> If your a current mac user the g5 WILL be alot faster then what you
have,
>if your an Intel user I dont see a rush to buy anything made by apple.
If 
> your a unix geek you might want a G5 just to say you own one and make
> fellow geeks unworthy of your presence.

> motherboard/ram/video card in their old rig. This upgrade cycle of
> hardware will eventually kill the mac market because only the very
rich
> can keep up.  What percentage of mac owners are using OSX? What
percentage 
> will upgrade to a current OSX running machine anytime soon?

There was an article in the San Jose Monkey News yesterday about this
very thing.  It seems that all of the Apple commercials featuring people
who have switched (most of whom seem unqualified to monitor their own
shoelaces) have had no impact on their market share.  It has stayed
virtually unchanged.  The only think keeping the company alive is that
the pool of Apple users spends more per capita then the pool of PC
users.

This is just my opinion, but that's not a sustainable business model. .
.

   Erik Klein
   www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum
   The Vintage Computer Forum

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From: "George Leo Rachor Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 16:03:48 2003

As a totally dedicated Intel user my roots were with the Apple ][.

My meager collection includes a Lisa and Next ...

Then I bought a G4 Cube just for the novelty and love it.  It's quiet
fan-less design is an engineering masterpiece.  It is too bad that Intel
PC's just can't be that elegant (or afford to be)...

George Rachor

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From: "Antonio Carlini" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 16:14:19 2003

> today that I actually want to own....

But that just leaves space for the stuff you *do* want :-)

> getting an ASIC for an Imac or similar...), so %deity knows 

This has been true for quite a while now and it's only going to
get worse. 10 years ago DEC used its own fab to churn out
custom chips (but at least docs were available for these).
Now there are plenty of custom fabs that will knock out as
asic cheaply  if you need them in large quantities. Everyone
else uses an fpga. I cannot see this trend changing: the
economics will dictate this.
 
> being able to keep these machines running is minimal :-(

The chances probably would not be much better even with a technical
manual! Reworking those smt devices is a skill I've not yet needed
to acquire (but, hey, how hard can it be!) but a 768 ball(pin?) BGA
is probably something that needs a specialist (i.e. expensive)
workstation (and even then the success rate seems not to be
that high).

But as long as there is plenty of old stuff kicking around, I'm
not too bothered about the modern stuff. I suppose if my Ultra 5
goes belly up, I'll become more bothered!

Antonio
 
-- 

---------------
Antonio Carlini             [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon Jul 21 16:22:22 2003

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, John Allain wrote:

> Can you convince the rest of us?  Does OS/X render all the earlier Macs
> obsolete?  Why would somebody need a G5?

I *do not* use MacOS classic.  I find it terribly annoying.  I have
earlier Macs, but I run NetBSD on them.  They do it rather well.  I *like*
OSX, though.  Works well.  Never had trouble with it.  Does everything I
expect of it the way I expect of it, with a couple of minor exceptions
(like case insensitivity -- but that's more of a filesystem issue).

But you could use OSX with a G3 just as easily.  With the G5, it's not a
question of *need*.  It's a question of *want*.

Peace...  Sridhar

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon Jul 21 16:23:50 2003

> But that just leaves space for the stuff you *do* want :-)

I ran out of space about 10 years ago...

> This has been true for quite a while now and it's only going to

Is it any wonder I don't own a computer less than 10 years old....

> The chances probably would not be much better even with a technical

But they might be slighlty better. A tech manual can't do any harm...

> workstation (and even then the success rate seems not to be

In 10 years time hackers might be able to do this at home. They certainly 
won't be able to do it if the chip (or the specs of said chip) are 
unavailable.

-tony

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon Jul 21 16:25:19 2003

> If it were built from TTL IC's, would it still be a microcomputer?

IMHO No. It would be a minicomputer. 

-tony

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From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 21 16:29:55 2003

> This is just my opinion, but that's not a sustainable business model. .

Why not?  Who says that businesses have to expand?  All of this
foolishness about an economy based on constant growth (greed) is
ruining this nation, our quality of life, and the world.  The problem
is the businesses that can't survive without constant growth, they're
the poorly run ones.  More growth needs more people (more
overpopulation), more houses, more highways, more schools, etc., which
all, in turn, require more growing companies and sources or goverment
revenue to keep the lunacy growing.  A dangerous cycle.  Stable
companies and a stable zero-growth based economy would surely be a
better business model, but one can't expect most monkey-brained
biz'droids, politicians, or most people, whose minds are rotting from
immersion in dogma and propaganda, to understand something so sensible
and simple.

Of course, I'm not saying that Apple isn't making any big mistakes...