- the number of engineers and geeks i know that are using hardware that was out of date when they hunted down and bought obsolete hardware is constantly growing.
sometimes it's for a better keyboard (apple), sometimes it's for a better build (ibm thinkpads v lenovo), sometimes it's for a fondness of hardware they had prior to their current hardware.
new hardware just doesn't excite the way new hardware did even 20 years ago. with new oses and crapware like minix baked into every intel chip i just want hardware and software that works for me and me alone.
- i've used opera mini a lot. on dumb nokias, even on an iphone 3g and android. the built in rss reader and data compression made my 50mb quote of data on pre pay 15 years ago go a long long way. i could browse the web all day using rss and text only sites.
when it was taken over by the chinese the rss went away for a few years but it did come back. when stuck in hospital for a few months over the last decade it kept me from boredom.
now that my dumb nokia can't do data i do miss it. last time i was in hospital i used an rss reader on android on hospital wifi. just wasn't as neat and easy to use. the dumb nokia was meant to be used in one hand. android and smartphones need two hands to use.
- I work with people leaving prison and they end up with phones with only about 3GB of transfer a month. They burn it all up in 3 days and then they can't use Google Maps to get around, they can't apply for jobs, can't get their benefits or healthcare.
There are many important sites that have multi-hundred megabyte homepages and it's not as easy to uBlock things on mobile. A sad situation.
- i'm kinda in this battle at the moment. i got a palmos m125. i've tried running palm desktop under wine on linux. tried j-pilot and for the life of me have not been able to get sync working.
- Years ago, there was a documented issue when attempting to sync a Newton device with modern PCs (unsure about Linux) over serial, where the default port speed to too fast for the sync software to handle. The solution was to use a slowdown.exe package
https://www.newtontalk.net/archive/newtontalk/2003-December/...
- pascal and forth but no basic. in the 1980s that was almost a death warrant right there.
- soft modem like winmodem and winprinter is a term that strikes terror into my heart. ibm thinkpads experimented with softmodems making the sound card pretend to be a modem. they were awful awful devices. was not surprised when they went back to real modems installed.
- bring back bbses, usable at 2400baud :-)
- while it might be too far into the weeds for some, it does show a need to fit large things into small computers that is a skill and mindset that a site dedicated to antique and smaller computers should bear in mind when they hit a wall. :-)
- i strongly suspect people will work magic with 3d printers and rasp pi long before the last stacy turns off for the last time.
i suspect people will start resurrecting older already dead ones to get them back in use.
- i'd buy it in a heart beat if it had a spectrum plus keyboard instead of the original rubber one. i might still buy one but i've already fought my battles on the rubber keyboard back in the 80s.
- i remember the hype and there was an article saying that sir clive sinclair of zx spectrum fame was looking at the transputer idea as a way to jump back into computing after the sale of sinclair. my thought that he was just about crazy enough to do it, make it work and sell it for a pittance :-)
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One reason people who could buy anything are choosing older tech over the newest releases isn't nostalgia or to save money, it's because a lot of new tech products are regressing as useful features get removed to increase profit margins, enable some trendy style or new business model. Hell, it's getting hard to even buy a TV without built in "smart" features and advertising that can't be disabled.