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Old vs retro computers?

Nope... I've priced them.

First 'real' computer was a C64, although I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 before that. Almost impossible to use but still pretty cool for it's day and price.
When I got my first C64 (and tape drive before I could afford a disc drive) there was a big push to sell Texas Instrument 99 (I think that is the right number) kits. People lined up to get the kit and have it built by a local electronic store in San Antonio. They took orders for about 3 days, stole all the kits and money, locked the doors and skipped town. That soured a lot of people on personal computers at the time. I just kept on playing.

If you play Zork I and find the bucket and don't know what to do with it, after trying to take it, move it, get it, don't kick it since the game will say, OK you kicked the bucket, you are dead, and you are back to the beginning. Ask me how I know.
 
Nope... I've priced them.

First 'real' computer was a C64, although I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 before that. Almost impossible to use but still pretty cool for it's day and price.

Last complete working Amiga 1000 I saw go was about a grand.

Is that the Timex with the crappy membrane keyboard? Almost like the Atari 400 some friends had that you had to push the keys with a pencil eraser to get it to work.
 
That would be it...

The old A1000s are definitely collectors items now. On one hand I wish I never traded it for a A2000, but no way could I afford to have both of them back then.
 
My first desk top computer was acquired in Japan in 1987. I bought it at the off base computer store, on time payments. 386-SX 16 with 8 meg hard drive (I knew I'd never fill that sucker up), 256k video ram and a 3 1/2 inch and 5 1/4 inch disc drives. It was about $3500. After 6 months or so the mother board died so I took it in for warranty work that took about 3 weeks. Being computer less I couldn't stand it, went to the BX and spent 1000 dollars on an Atari 1000 computer. It was great. Played all my video games much better than my clone, hooked up with all the local computer BBS phone groups and had outstanding graphics. I played a lot of Pysnosis (spelling) games and other graphic games. I sold it right before I retired in 1992 and got about 750 back from the sale.
 
What was Pournelle's (he wrote for Byte magazine) law back in the 80s? I think it was something like "The computer you want will always cost $5,000". I never actually had exactly the computer I wanted, but I never kicked in $5K either.
 
What was Pournelle's (he wrote for Byte magazine) law back in the 80s? I think it was something like "The computer you want will always cost $5,000". I never actually had exactly the computer I wanted, but I never kicked in $5K either.
I remember that quote. A guy I still work with used to say it all the time back then.

The other quote I remember still holds true - "if it's already easy, don't put it on a computer".
 
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If it looks like this, but works, it's retro.
If it's all original and 20+ years old, I'd say it's "vintage."
 
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