Something that has been kind of funny for me, perhaps others are feeling this way: I see increasingly this "retro computing community" fawning over machines that I think of as ... just machines that I used once. Some of the machines were even kind of scorned at the time as I recall — now they're sought after, lovingly restored....
I don't know if my reaction is as one who is being made aware of just how old they are (61, BTW) or if it is a bit of a sweetness that I feel that younger generations are coveting these older machines instead of reflexively landfilling them.
bombcar 7 hours ago [-]
The key is that you used them. The retro community is for people who lusted after those machines, but we’re stuck with something much more affordable and much less powerful.
And now they’re well into middle age and they have money.
ehnto 6 hours ago [-]
The same thing happens with cars. There's a somewhat predictable spike in used car prices for what become cult classics. Cars that are otherwise pretty mundane, and have since been well surpassed.
It's the people now with full time employment, who couldn't afford them when they were 16. Now they can, and the cars in good condition are more scarce.
icehawk 4 hours ago [-]
I don't think that's entirely it. A lot of the things I've been collecting in the hobby are just things that I had used a the time. I've got more weird variants of Mac SEs and Mac LCs which were things I had at home, or used at school, than the Quadras and Power Macs I dreamed of.
JKCalhoun 7 hours ago [-]
Myself, I have passion for the KIM-1. Perhaps, as you suggest, because I saw it in a TAB book in the early 70's when I was a teenager, unable at that time to swing the $400 or so to get it.
But I think my current passion has more to do with the simplicity of it, and being forced (well, more or less) to learn 6502 assembly. (Oh, and Christ an original KIM-1 is a good deal more than $400 now, ha ha. But there are nice reproductions you can build yourself.)
What a breath of fresh air the thing is — having so little between its hex keypad and its six character display.
deadbabe 7 hours ago [-]
I don’t think it’s that simple.
Yes for some people who used these machines once, they might just think of them as old machines, the same way an ancient Roman still alive today might not think much of mundane Roman tech.
But getting into retro-computing as a hobby is more like being a historian or archaeologist. There is endless lore to discover, and restoring old hardware is an art. Some of these people were never old enough or even existed to lust after these machines.
Someday, all the people who used these machines will be dead, completely dead, and the machines will be all that remains. Blessed are those who keep them running in their memory.
flomo 5 hours ago [-]
You're right about the money part, but it always seemed more like a 30-year-old pursuit than middle-aged.
But once I went through Vogons and had the impression that many of them lacked any taste. A lot of PCs (and Macs) were total shite back then. If you want to dink around, you can now get the best old stuff.
dylan604 8 hours ago [-]
Does that same feeling of wow still exist for kids today? They have grown up with computers there entire life. Some of us were introduced to computers in our teens, so there was prior experience of not having a computer for that wow to hit. Even now, the wow factor has diminished for me with new computers/devices. They are not really doing anything new as much as they just do the things faster/quiter/cheaper/smaller. There are definite milestones for me that just made my socks roll up and down when they were first available on computers. Is there anything not done on a computer now?
cosmic_cheese 7 hours ago [-]
> Some of us were introduced to computers in our teens, so there was prior experience of not having a computer for that wow to hit.
The effect is similar for those of us whose exposure was earlier, but similarly devoid of computers prior.
In my case it was a 1996 Mac tower w/internal 28k modem, at which point I was seven. It was not only the first computer of any sort in the house (no game consoles either) but also our first CD player. Up until then, the extent of tech for me was a late 80s Sharp VCR and an even older faux wood console Zenith TV hooked up to a roof antenna (no cable). Anything beyond that existed only in TV commercials and movies.
It was such a huge shift that it’s difficult to articulate. It sparked a lifelong obsession.
steamrolled 4 hours ago [-]
There's a ton of hobbies like that. There are people who collect out-of-print comic books, sports memorabilia, old militaria, etc. What's the point of any of it? It's the joy of having a hobby and being a part of a community, not the utility of the gear itself.
wpm 5 hours ago [-]
Polymaker's Panchroma Matte White is also a very close match to Classic Mac plastics.
Panchroma Muted White is the one that is somewhat similar to the Apple platinum color. Someone sent Polymaker an RGB color code instead of a sample, so it's pretty off in reality. That would be fine, because all machines are yellowed to some degree anyway, so colors vary widely. More importantly, it's just terrible filament. Layer adhesion is virtually non-existent, compared to Polymaker's Poly Lite filaments. I have wasted so much time trying to print that awful filament. Hopefully this manufacturer is better.
ghushn3 5 hours ago [-]
Not gonna lie, I was expecting to see something in translucent bondi blue.
amelius 25 minutes ago [-]
Is anyone having success printing keycaps with filament?
ehnto 5 minutes ago [-]
With an ender 3 it's easy enough, but it does not feel as nice as shot ABS plastic caps.
I am sure though, if you spent time polishing and painting the surface it would feel much better. It's still similar plastic after all.
Biggest problem for me, if printed in PLA the + shaped slot eventually gets too loose and the key pops off. Can just print another but it's annoying for sure.
Resin printers would likely have a much nicer out of the printer feel, with much smoother details at that size (for caps with 3D details on top). You could also print a whole set much quicker. Same speed for one cap as it would be for 100 at once.
chubs 9 minutes ago [-]
I printed a few for a friend. They seem to work just fine, but if you look close you can see the ‘terraced’ steps in the printing. Probably feels a bit rough. I guess you could smooth that with acetone vapour and ABS filament if so inclined.
JKCalhoun 8 hours ago [-]
There is a wild assortment of modern hardware out there for keeping older hardware running. BlueSCSI is mentioned in the article and I have been a customer. I used a BlueSCSI to save pull some old sources from an old SCSI drive I had been hanging on to for 35 years or so [1].
People are making replacements for the dead lead-acid batteries from the original Mac (so-called) Portable. There are USB-powered cables to charge/power early MacBooks. I'm sure others can rattle off several other devices.
Now you have people 3D printing replacement bezels, etc. for these old machines. Very cool.
dylan604 8 hours ago [-]
Did you make a full backup of that old SCSI device to modern devices? What did you do with all of the extra space as I can only imagine how small the old SCSI device was compared with modern media sizes
JKCalhoun 7 hours ago [-]
Yeah, the drive was 20 or 40 MB, I think. Easily moved it all to an SD card.
If anyone cares about old shareware game source code, I used the opportunity of recovering some old code to create a number of disk images (that you can mount from a modern Mac emulator like Basilisk II for example). Here is one (I think you can find the other three or so from this one):
I don't know if my reaction is as one who is being made aware of just how old they are (61, BTW) or if it is a bit of a sweetness that I feel that younger generations are coveting these older machines instead of reflexively landfilling them.
And now they’re well into middle age and they have money.
It's the people now with full time employment, who couldn't afford them when they were 16. Now they can, and the cars in good condition are more scarce.
But I think my current passion has more to do with the simplicity of it, and being forced (well, more or less) to learn 6502 assembly. (Oh, and Christ an original KIM-1 is a good deal more than $400 now, ha ha. But there are nice reproductions you can build yourself.)
What a breath of fresh air the thing is — having so little between its hex keypad and its six character display.
Yes for some people who used these machines once, they might just think of them as old machines, the same way an ancient Roman still alive today might not think much of mundane Roman tech.
But getting into retro-computing as a hobby is more like being a historian or archaeologist. There is endless lore to discover, and restoring old hardware is an art. Some of these people were never old enough or even existed to lust after these machines.
Someday, all the people who used these machines will be dead, completely dead, and the machines will be all that remains. Blessed are those who keep them running in their memory.
But once I went through Vogons and had the impression that many of them lacked any taste. A lot of PCs (and Macs) were total shite back then. If you want to dink around, you can now get the best old stuff.
The effect is similar for those of us whose exposure was earlier, but similarly devoid of computers prior.
In my case it was a 1996 Mac tower w/internal 28k modem, at which point I was seven. It was not only the first computer of any sort in the house (no game consoles either) but also our first CD player. Up until then, the extent of tech for me was a late 80s Sharp VCR and an even older faux wood console Zenith TV hooked up to a roof antenna (no cable). Anything beyond that existed only in TV commercials and movies.
It was such a huge shift that it’s difficult to articulate. It sparked a lifelong obsession.
And since I didn't actually see a link to the filament in the Ars Technica article, here it is https://polarfilament.com/products/retro-platinum-pla-1kg-1-...
I am sure though, if you spent time polishing and painting the surface it would feel much better. It's still similar plastic after all.
Biggest problem for me, if printed in PLA the + shaped slot eventually gets too loose and the key pops off. Can just print another but it's annoying for sure.
Resin printers would likely have a much nicer out of the printer feel, with much smoother details at that size (for caps with 3D details on top). You could also print a whole set much quicker. Same speed for one cap as it would be for 100 at once.
People are making replacements for the dead lead-acid batteries from the original Mac (so-called) Portable. There are USB-powered cables to charge/power early MacBooks. I'm sure others can rattle off several other devices.
Now you have people 3D printing replacement bezels, etc. for these old machines. Very cool.
If anyone cares about old shareware game source code, I used the opportunity of recovering some old code to create a number of disk images (that you can mount from a modern Mac emulator like Basilisk II for example). Here is one (I think you can find the other three or so from this one):
https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/SoftDorothy-UnfinishedTa...