Re: Vaguely on-topic ramblings

Lemmiwinks, The Gerbil King wrote:

> On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:25:41 +0000, Stu Carter <stu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, lechien wrote:
>>
>>> I know my answer, but I thought I'd air this little domestic and open
>>> it to the group. Why are we so keen to keep the Spectrum alive more
>>> than 23 years on? What is the unique "Spectrum-ness" that keeps us
>>> putting off real-world projects and coming back to the wee (as in
>>> little) machine?
>>
>>Probably because it triggers care-free memories from your youth when the
>>world was less complicated and you didn't have a wife to moan at you ;)
>
> Amen to that!
>
> I also never fail to be amazed by the brilliant design of computers like
> the ZX81 and Spectrum, and how clever the programmers of the time were
> at wringing extra performance and abilities out of what is essentially
> very simple hardware; things like 4-channel beeper music, and routines
> for cleverly avoiding attribute clash by switching attribute colours at
> 50Hz, etc.
>
> Those days are all but gone now, as what tends to happen is a faster PC
> is specified when extra performance is needed, and rather than try to
> make a bit of hardware do something extra special that the designers
> never imagined possible, you just chuck it in the bin and replace it
> with something more capable.
>
> So I suppose I'm still Speccy/ZX81-obsessed because it's a faint
> reminder of the days when men were men and programmers had to really
> work for a living!

For me, that sums up the entire reason i still have 30+ machines from the
80s: memories.

Hardware design was an *art* then. We were doing things often for the first
time. Making do with what was available. And you had to have a clue to even
be a 'user'. ( software design was too, but i was an EE, so hardware
interested me more )

Now its all just a commodity for the unwashed clueless masses. With the next
so called 'upgrade' around the corner. Nothing more than yet another
toaster with pretty blinking lights.
.

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