OSNews > Thread > "RE[3]: Impressive!" by Doc Pain

Private Computer Museum Offers Glimpse Into the Past

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 24th Nov 2008 14:55 UTC, submitted by Ward D

The private computer museum of Max Burnet has every bit of computing nostalgia imaginable, ranging from the first UNIX PDP-7, a classic DEC PDP-8, the original IBM PC, a string of old Apple's including the Apple Lisa, a ~~Spectrum~~ Sinclair (doh!) ZX81, Bill Gates' personal favorite the MITS Altair 8800, a DEC VT100 terminal, and a range of IBM mainframe consoles from the 1960s and 1970s. If you have never seen what this old stuff looks like, this slideshow offers a snapshot of the past. And if you thought PCs became fashionable with the Apple iMac, then you haven't seen the lime green or powder blue consoles of some of DEC's machines from the 1970s.

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RE[3]: Impressive!

by Doc Pain on Tue 25th Nov 2008 01:45 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Impressive!"

Member since:
2006-10-08

It's sad really, that when you look at the software that was made for the 8-bit and 16-bit era computers, and how the programmers just squeezed every bit of performance out of them, that we now are in the state of affairs, where the computers are so fast and have so many resources, that the software just isn't as optimized as it could / should be, so we really don't see any difference in the speed that things run.

I think you're mentioning a common observation (by those who are not spoiled by advertisement and OS "politics" already). But optimization and better programming habits seem to hinder economical growth (as well as environmental pollution by tons of "outdated" hardware).

http://osnews.com/thread?338143

Of course, I'm weird like that, and like to explore the way the OS works, which is probably why I like reading OSNews so much

Hehe, understandable. :-)

But there is a part of me that longs for the day of the slim OS that is just there to run the Applications, instead of needing the time to set it up and keep it working.

Only the low-ressource-market and the embedded systems seem to follow this idea today...

Too bad DEC went away, they made some cool stuff....

Yes, as well as Sun or SGI.

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