Part of the charm IS the hardware and software are obsolete. Your point about subscriptions and activations are well taken. I am not sure without a hack if you could activate XP today. I know many games are dead and buried as their servers and license managers long went off line.

Mac 128k Users - 40 years on, a dedicated lot : https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240123-the-apple-macint...