As AI grips world, the thrill of collecting vintage computers is growing
1 points by mempko
1 points by mempko
Here is a picture of me with an Alto at the Computer History Museum in Seattle before they shut it down after Paul Allen died. https://mempko.com/alto.jpg
Wow. That’s cool! Did you get to use the machine? I’ve always wanted to touch one and get a sense of just how close or far it was from the Macs of the ‘80s.
Unfortunately, I think part of this trend is thanks to AI in a different way. It feels increasingly like I notice people getting into more vintage (and retro) computing because they are excited about using “AI” tools to generate the things they always wished they had back in the day. Not sure how I feel about that. I guess it tracks with some of the upgrade maximization vintage collectors were doing before LLMs, but I like it much less than that.
Yes, I used the machine. What was cool is they had 2 others that were emulators all connected together with the vintage one via Ethernet. So you were able to do networking too.
The closure of that museum was such a loss. I'm glad you got a crack at it.
I saw one many years ago in the Smithsonian museum of American history. It was cool to see, but it wasn't running and touchable. It was behind glass.
Oh thank god it’s not talking about 90s pcs :)
You can’t just say that and not expect me to want to know if you’re doing something interesting with 90s PCs. Vintage gaming? Viewing the old web via WaybackProxy? Using it as your daily driver, using NetBSD?
