What is it about retro computing that looks so comfy?

What is it about retro computing that looks so comfy?

it hadn't hit the mainstream yet, it was for enthusiasts and work.

...

That pic is from around 1998, computers were as mainstream then as they are today.

It's just a cosy looking press picture, and the cases on the SG machines were very cool.

>What is it about retro computing that looks so comfy?

in your pic?

all the other decoration that has nothing to do with ugly ass computer in the middle

computers were still perfectly hackable in 1998

things have changed a lot, and gone way more mainstream

But it's a SGI Indy, it's not a generic x86 shitbox.

That's just a bunch of shit on his desk with a middle school tier desktop placement

But the computer existed already in 1993

>That fucking bicycle seat

I bet that Amiga 1200 in unexpanded.

I guess it comes down to the fact that with older machines from the 80s to 90s, a computer was relatively a lot more basic than computers now, which meant that, especially from a programmer's perspective, you were a lot more intimate with the computer on a much lower level.

I guess that's why retro computing looks more comfy, could also be the fact that everyone on this board I'm guessing at the very, very latest used a late 90s, early 2000s desktop as their first computer.

As I said, it's the memory in childhood we have of these types of machines combined with the intimacy with the hardware.

Things were simpler back then.

>you were a lot more intimate with the computer

...

I had one of those!

I always wondered what happened to it, probably mom threw it out.

It was designed, marketed and taken more seriously. It looked imposing and machine-like, and we associate it more with films and artwork instead of soccer moms, wagecucks and gamer kids.

The Indigo2 came out in 1993, by '98 we had the Octane.

This isn't true, at least for me. Most of my favorite retro platforms were ones that felt very modern even by today's standards. I do love some older, more simple platforms however, old minicomputers appeal to me in the way you're talking about.

The 90s and early 00s were the golden age of computing.

Now it's basically shit. Everything is always broken, and everything is twice as hard, even if it's been "dumbed down".

There's a few exceptions, but on some days I regret going into this field.

My first compy was an ibm ps/2 from the late 80s that I used in the early 90s then i used stuff like 386/486 systems then by 2000 it was pentium 3 . I'm such an oldfag.
BTW: posting from a windows 98 se virtualbox because I was nostalgia-ing.

In period pics like this, I think it's the desk arrangement and the way it positions the computer as just another tool, rather than the all-consuming force out to replace everything you own.

OP's workstation and associated software only takes up 30% of the desk, with the rest devoted to books, writing surfaces, and knickknacks.

At a modern desk, everything but the bicycle and maybe the plastic dinosaur would be replaced by some web-based service and the desk space given over to more monitors.

>The 90s and early 00s were the golden age of computing.
That's fucking bullshit and you know it, or at least you would if you'd actually lived it or at least used systems from that time period.

Everything was expensive as shit, disjointed, poorly documented, and quickly rendered worthlessly outdated with rapid advancement. It may have looked cool and may be fun to work with now that the internet provides us unlimited software, documentation and support at the snap of a finger, but I'd never go back to that time voluntarily. There's no better time to be into computing than today.

>quickly rendered worthlessly outdated with rapid advancement.

yup, your computer was literal garbage after 3-4 years. now things last long enough that they need planned obsolescence and/or planned failure just to make you buy new shit.

>just another tool, rather than the all-consuming force out to replace everything you own.

I can agree where it sucked when your computer was so fastly outdated and now my stuff that's mostly from 2011 still works great for me. If some of the styles though came back it would be neat like late 90s transparent plastic. I had a gameboy color, an apollo (rebranded hp) printer, a cordless phone, etc. all with that awesome transparent plastic.

i'd be happy if things were actually built like they were in the 90's. electronics now are flimsy and break after three years instead of just being outdated.

Probably due to china.

>I think it's the desk arrangement and the way it positions the computer as just another tool, rather than the all-consuming force out to replace everything you own.

Actually why I still use my Amiga 1200 for so much. Keeps me grounded in reality a little bit because I know that, given the chance. I'd be one of those people staring into a screen all day.

china, RoHS, generally bad craftsmanship, etc.

Design and quality costs money, and I seriously doubt half of you would stomach the premiums for a nicer, longer lasting product you're going to throw out in three years anyway.

You used to buy a computer as an investment with the expectations to last 10-20 years, now you buy it knowing it's going to be old news the second it inconveniences you even slightly, and vendors adjusted accordingly. Consumerism is a race to the bottom, and it requires vendors to skimp wherever possible lest the consumers throw a shit fit over a few days' wages.

> just another tool, rather than the all-consuming force out to replace everything you own.

It's really weird to look at sci-fi from the 90s and see how little progress they thought there'd be. I sort of miss that utilitarian and grungy looking mechanical aesthetic.

Probably due to the fact that we require so much more from the same basic elements we've always been stuck with. There is only so much you can pull out of a single silicon chip etc. Back then cooling wasn't even thought about, there was no need for active cooling even. Now we're utilizing everything to their current maximums and it comes with a price.

You don't get that much for your money today. Even "high end" hardware will just be running Windows 10, so what's the point in doing anything else?

I mean, compare the Sinclair stuff to Apple or Commodore stuff at the time. Not only is one a worse product in terms of quality, but also in usability.

Now there is no difference in "usability."

I remember being so mad when I had to replace my passively cooled Amiga with a PC and having (comparatively) a jet engine sat next to my desk.

>Design and quality costs money, and I seriously doubt half of you would stomach the premiums for a nicer, longer lasting product you're going to throw out in three years anyway.

i've had about $500 of supposedly "premium" electronic gadgets break on me in the last year.

if cost is the issue i'd gladly give up stupid extra features for better-built equipment. better cases, tougher cables, more durable buttons and so forth

did not buy pic-related but it's a perfect example of what i'm talking about

This so much. That you have to buy second-hand (and old, a lot of the time) to get something with good build quality annoys me to no end.

I don't mind so much, as this T60 cost me £50 three years ago and I have no intention of replacing it any time soon.

But it still doesn't bode well for the premium build market when the premium feature market has such strength.

>You don't get that much for your money today.
Like hell you don't, $800 today buys you a system that the average person can use with current software for 10-15 years at this rate as long as no major game-changing use case emerges.

The same amount of money back in '91 (before inflation) maybe bought you a piece of shit SX-16 that was practically DOA and barely capable of handling Windows, and this is from a no-name outlet, if you went with a big-name vendor or even a lot of other smaller outfits you were looking at $1200+ for a piece of shit that wouldn't even boot Windows 95 4 years later while systems made in 2007 can still run Windows 10 or modern Linux distributions admirably.

>Now there is no difference in "usability."
And it's fucking fantastic that now you can expect an under-$1000 system to be able to perform most tasks the same way those in the '90s expected under-$3000 systems to.

Premium doesn't always mean durable. They too may abide by the reality that their product is going to be considered "useless garbage" in 3-4 years by those who would rather have bigger specs on the shelf talker and more "dumb features"

You missed my point. A 10 year old laptop will perform most people's tasks just as well as a brand new PC. There's specialist cases, but those are outliers and will always cost more, but that I can run a laptop that is as far away from today as a Commodore 64 was to an Amiga 1200, and you see what my point was.

You can go and purchase a massively expensive system now, but there will be very little that my old laptop can't do for the tasks of MOST people.

Absolutely nothing. You and everyone like you are fucking idiots.

lately, things tend to break long before i no longer need them.

I see your angle now, and I agree with it fully. But hell, that's nothing new either, you just don't have to pay as much to see it anymore.

9 times out of 10, a typical PC user was probably just as well off on the $3,290 386DX-33 system in this lineup as they would be paying double the price for the $7,990 486DX-33. Granted, you'd actually notice a difference going up from an uncached 386 up to a cached 486 far more than you'd notice going from a low-end shitdozer up to a Ryzen 1800X, but it still sure as fuck wouldn't be $4,700 worth of a difference.

>Premium doesn't always mean durable. They too may abide by the reality that their product is going to be considered "useless garbage" in 3-4 years by those who would rather have bigger specs on the shelf talker and more "dumb features"

desu you sound like a richfag who doesn't think twice when your stuff breaks and you have to buy another after 2.5 years.

cherrypicked pictures. That's literally it.

I'd project unrealistic expectations and virtues on you like a retarded faggot and tell you to "stop breaking shit" but I still get where you're coming from, I hardly think we're better off in that particular department myself. It's a shame, but ultimately what I'm trying to say is that we've improved in a lot of other areas since then, and I don't think it's right to ignore that.

There's nothing wrong with noticing and observing great practices we once had in the past, but I find this kind of outlook overly bitter and not as constructive.

I'm actually probably posting from a shittier system than you are, and I'll usually go out of my way to buy older, used flagships if I can. It's simply just what I've come to believe from observing myself and others I know in how they make purchasing decisions. It's easy to say we want things to be built well again, but it doesn't seem like a lot of us, myself included, are willing to go out and back it up with our wallets.

Transparent plastic was awesome. I still have my Gen 1 Dark Blue Digimon and Cybiko.

>but it doesn't seem like a lot of us, myself included, are willing to go out and back it up with our wallets.

i absolutely would, since i tend to keep my stuff longer and it's cheaper for me in the long run if things last longer.

I had a SGI Sony Trinitron 24" CRT that was the fucking shit. Got it for free when the graphics shop my dad worked for was moving and upgrading all of their equipment in 2000 or so.

God, I miss this baby so much :,(

Me too, and hopefully one day we'll both get something worth shelling out for brand new. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to build something to last, merely that it's understandable why things are the way they are currently. It seems we're very much a minority any more.

I'd miss it too, I love my regular 70.

Then figure the inflation into the $800 and it is more like $2500. My first PC was a major purchase and it was a 386 16. The Apple we had when I was younger was an even larger investment. We got to choose that or a trip to Disney, fuck Disney the Apple paid off with me having a career in IT. But it definitely puts the costs in perspective.

Disney's shit anyway, I'd do the same thing.

>It's easy to say we want things to be built well again, but it doesn't seem like a lot of us, myself included, are willing to go out and back it up with our wallets.

Ironically, if you're buying an old system you probably are doing just that.

I myself use an old Thinkpad as my only computer and have no intention of changing any time soon, but I greatly dislike that this is actually the case, in a lot of ways.

One thing I'd like is better UI design to make a comeback where they design based around a lower DPi. This 1024x768 screen only seems "small" because so much software is fat now.

One thing I'd like to make a comeback is "offline" capability to online tasks, like a modern version of mass pulling and pushing for UseNet and BBS/Fido mail, but that's just because I have a shockingly bad internet connection where scripts often just shit the bed and don't load. Like captcha is doing now...

don't get me wrong, i appreciate having an affordable 7 GFLOP computer under my desk. it's not unreasonable to be annoyed by poor quality and craftsmanship though.

Definitely no regrets there.

I think an argument could be made about why you need a 7GF computer under your desk, and that half that shouldn't be plenty for a home user.

I hope the mode to low power computing eventually brings around new paradigms on how we construct desktop OSs and software.

I'd be inclined to agree with you, if only the industry would get the message instead of trying to pile on more gimmicks to sustain an unsustainable business model.

It sure isn't, I just feel a lot of the subject is a little bitter and rose-tinted. I'd be talking out of my ass if I also didn't sometimes miss the days when OEMs actually engineered and put effort into their systems instead of having Foxconn slap their plastics on a base. Some of that shit was pure art, and a joy to use because of it.

> should be plenty for a home user

i splurged a little on my last build. first high-end machine i've ever owned.

your mom is hot?

In a first of Futurama they had dot-matrix printer in year 3000, kekked hard

and yet all anyone does on them anymore is masturbate to scanlines on 8-bit games

>literal garbage after 3-4 years
Literally. Even opening an office document on a 4 year old machine could evolve into an anger-management session.

I'm happy that this is over, but there are rough seas ahead.
Back in the days people with love for computers made them, nowadays people with love for money design them.

aesthetic bread
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