I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Chew the fat on more "recent" computing (1995 and upwards)

I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby YetiSeti on Sat Nov 05, 2011 4:57 pm

Because it's 20-odd years ago now and some things in the 90s are collectible, rare, interesting and have dollar value. If there was nothing vintage computing about the 90s, then consider it Void Comp. (ba dom duh (the sound of a joke going flat)).

I have a number of early 90s items which contain vestiges of the shapely and interesting designs we identify so dearly with things from the 80s.

Like one of these :
Packard Bell Corner Computers - http://home.fuse.net/bobwatts/packardbellcorner.htm

and one of these :
The IBM PC110 Palmtop Computer - http://www.basterfield.com/pc110/whatisit.htm

Okay, that might be about it for computers themselves, but I do have quite a few other computer and technology related items.

In the 90s there was more power, smaller, portable, cheaper. I think?
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby coogie on Sun Nov 06, 2011 12:45 pm

Yep on the apple front there are a number of already highly collectable 90's computers, which I think generally by the interest in the bidding others like myself would class them as classic, but i wouldn't make the jump to vintage just yet....

A good example of one such beast is the TAM - check out one going on eBay right now: http://www.ebay.com/itm/230694821563?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

I recon the Pentium Pro would have to be one of the rarer Intel based beasties & would be one to get a hold of if you were collecting down this track. :wink:

As part of a larger discussion around classification should we utilise a consolidated version of the vintage car classification system. In brief: Veteran, Vintage, Classic. With cutoffs based around manufacture dates?

More details about the NZ Vintage Classification found here: http://www.vintagecarclub-northshore.co.nz/

Food for thought :?:
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby Carcenomy on Sun Nov 06, 2011 4:06 pm

There's some cool stuff that could be classed as vintage really. The AGA Amigas generally are considered vintage regardless, but then there's other important hardware of the time. It's not quite as clear cut as it was back in the 80s, but it's still there. Notable entries are the SoundBlaster cards, 3dfx accelerators like the Voodoo, the Pentium Pro and its derivatives, the NexGen Nx586... goodness, it's all a bit much to take in ;)

It is worth pointing out that due to various efforts over the years, masterpieces of the era are far harder to find. Heck, find a good tidy working 386 setup...
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby Gibsaw on Sun Nov 06, 2011 5:05 pm

Carcenomy wrote:It is worth pointing out that due to various efforts over the years, masterpieces of the era are far harder to find. Heck, find a good tidy working 386 setup...


Or even a 486..
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby Carcenomy on Sun Nov 06, 2011 6:51 pm

Gibsaw wrote:
Carcenomy wrote:It is worth pointing out that due to various efforts over the years, masterpieces of the era are far harder to find. Heck, find a good tidy working 386 setup...


Or even a 486..

Word. I have a lot of middle-aged gear, so if any of you guys are ever looking for something specific, sing out - I might just have it.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby tezza on Sun Nov 06, 2011 9:38 pm

Yes Vintage. It's a subjective term and it's debated regularly at the Vintage Computer Forums. Then there are associated terms like collectable, classic, antique, retro etc. People have spent many hours debating, discussing and arguing about where the fuzzy boundaries lie.

For the purposes of these forums (presently at least), vintage spans the same period as that currently recognised by the international forum linked above. That is roughly anything up to about 1995, and can include Pentium 1. More recent machines should be treated as off-topic.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby lizardb0y on Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:19 am

I completely agree. There are definitely machines of the 90s and even 00s that are worth preserving. When I started collecting old computers, the Playstation was new, and thus "not interesting." A year ago I saw a PS in an exhibition and realised that it was a genuine classic. I now have a couple.

I think that anything no longer commercially sold is worth preserving. Even some brand new items are identifiable as "classics". That doesn't mean I'll be leaping to save them, but I hope someone does.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby Carcenomy on Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:47 pm

The problem is the in-between period.

The space between when a product is new, easily available and of no major merit and when it's old, considered a vintage item and scarce is when things get crappy. In the late vintage category now is things like prePentium desktops, middle-aged Macs, so on. These items are getting harder and harder to procure, as people look at them and write them off immediately. Take for instance the Commodore 486SX-LTC. I would see a very unusual notebook computer that deserves a fitting retirement, others would see a horrible old thing that deserves the scrapbin. Things like eDay are really going to hurt long term for us vintage enthusiasts, as machines not deemed as vintage at the time of the eDay receive their final fate.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby tezza on Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:01 pm

Carcenomy wrote:Things like eDay are really going to hurt long term for us vintage enthusiasts, as machines not deemed as vintage at the time of the eDay receive their final fate.


It's not so much that some older machines are deemed non-vintage. It's more that they are deemed not collectable. Vintage and collectable don't always go together. I've seen plenty of obscure models from the 1970s and 80s that certainly are vintage, but they are so obscure no one knows a lot about them. They are large, heavy, there are no docs and no software anyware. They go for a song and many are probably scrapped because selling is too much of a hassel.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby Carcenomy on Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:28 pm

Collectability is the true hot topic really :)
Yes, some stuff is becoming collectable. But does it mean it should be... the eternal question therein lies.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby WelshWizard on Tue Nov 08, 2011 6:16 am

Carcenomy wrote:Collectability is the true hot topic really :)
Yes, some stuff is becoming collectable. But does it mean it should be... the eternal question therein lies.

Well if you don't in 10 or 20 years you will be moaning you did not. same as the way we moan about all the stuff we dumped a few years back because it had little or no value, ( I think back to the amount of XT's 286's 386's even 486's that I scrapped when I had the computer company, 99% of them all worked with no problems, as for the 8 bits like apples, atari's and comodore, we did not even check them out they just went into the hard rubbish ( even if we had made an allowance for them as a part exchange on a new system.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby Carcenomy on Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:11 pm

That's the moral dilemma for computer shops. Personally I hold onto everything, but many shops don't.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby bert on Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:28 pm

Someone mentioned to me that my 1988 Honda Prelude may be called/classed as "a classic" in 2014. (26 years?). I wouldn't quote me on that, however for a car, 25+ years is what the vast majority of people would call "old". Thing is, while the car is not my daily driver, the car is still drivable (passes its WOF) and still goes and doesn't require any serious work. If it ever did, finding new spares would be impossible - I'd have to start swapping bits second hand. It's not vintage, but I'd like to think of it as a classic.

Then again there are people who would consider a 2 yr old car "old" and have to go out and buy a new one. (I wonder what other "first world" problems people like that face on a daily basis?) The NZ Govt BMW Limo thing comes to mind. I'd like to think that those cars went to good homes. Or is there no element of prestige to owning an ex Govt limo? :)

I read somewhere that Intel has only recently ceased production of 486 CPUs! they were still manufacturing them because they were widely used in embedded devices. I guess that on the day a manufacturer no longer stocks or can supply a part, perhaps then that's where you could draw a line in the sand and say "this is now more vintage than it was yesterday"? Some recording artists sales increase after they die, as their estate tries to cash in on the publicity. I see someone on Trade Me has just listed a ton of 486 CPUs. Perhaps they're trying to start a similar phenomenon? I'd put my hand up for anything 286,386,486 etc. (or earlier) by the way.

I agree with the point "collectable" vs. "vintage". Whilst some gear is very very old (thus fitting the common understanding of the term vintage) unless it is highly sought after by a particular group of people because it may still have some use or following, I agree it's not worth calling "collectable". (akin to my limo argument above). A Pentium Pro (with all its FDIV flaws) could be considered collectable due to the fact it was targeted at a smaller market (servers) and was more powerful than the run of the mill Pentium, and had some bug. Same goes for "production error action figures". :( I'm in that boat too :( Perhaps this is what attracted enthusiasts to it so was sought after and gained a certain level of popularity or distinction?

IMHO the same may one day be said of the 2600K and 2700K CPUs of today, along with the extreme editions of P4s and Core/Core2's.

Then again, the world is full of hoarders like Carcenomy, so there's always bound to be someone who collects obscure things. :)
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby WelshWizard on Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:05 am

I look at 25 years being the start, good example being the old motorcycles , the old British bikes became popular to collect, but after a few years prices went high and people still wanted to collect old bikes but in many cases they were out of the price range of most so they started looking at the older Jap bikes , a few years on and they are starting to become expensive, so even the less popular models are now being collected, also a factor is if it was your first then people want to try and regain their youth so they look for their first bike, same applies to computers, a lot on here will have maybe started with 8 bit home systems ( some may have even built their first computer) but as time goes by you find that those who look for the old computers grows in number, but those that started some time ago will have more than one system the same, some will collect them so they have spares, some will collect as there are slight variations in model, ( C= 64 being a good example , when you check some of the collectors sites you will find some have over 100 systems in their collection, and most are in working condition, and even though as time passes the older generation of collectors will start to reduce through natural progression of time, more youngster find out about the older stuff prior to their starting computer, and then become involved with them the price holds steady and still continues to rise, and you will always have the speculator who buys for investment and has no real interest in the computer itself other than a way to make money ( as with Classic bikes which pension fund now actively purchase at auction not for the love of them but as an investment )

so any thing 20 and more years old is collectible , and the 20 years stuff is reasonably priced but give it a few years and even the P11 200MHz chip will be collectible.
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Re: I dunno, I think it's time to consider the 90s as Vint. Comp

Postby tezza on Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:21 am

WelshWizard wrote:( as with Classic bikes which pension fund now actively purchase at auction not for the love of them but as an investment )


That's interesting. Once pension funds get involved in collecting then we are talking about some very big players. Interesting to see if they ever turn their eyes on classic collectable computers. Maybe they already have?
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