From a semi regular XP user, this writeup is exemplary. Well done.

When I need to use those devices, I can just fire it up and go.

Risks are low too. Keep online use by the book, focused and there just us not that much to worry about

I had setup the animation and kicked off the renderer expecting to come back to work the following day to see all my frames done and ready to be assembled into the movie, which would be written to a few VHS tapes for overnight transport to the show floor.

I go home, life is good, sleep, awake, show up at work, and oh shit!

The renderer script had died a few hundred frames in, meaning I was screwed.

I was doing this work on SGI IRIX, which was a futuristic OS at the time. I was about to experience just what X11 can do!

Some quick math told me the movie could still be done! But, I was going to need to render on damn near every machine in the building.

No problem. One of the managers mooched some temporary render licenses meaning I was set! All I had to do was install the software on the machines, hand each of them a bunch of frames, kick it all off and build the movie as the data gets computed.

I did the whole thing from my desk using X11 to run applications, including the amazing SGI software manager, and setup the renders.

At one point, I had windows open to about 10 machines and each of them was in various stages of software installation too. Some could take the package, others needed space to be free, still others had a dependency, and on it goes.

I pushed all the boxes hard, even rendering on some other users machines without them even knowing!

For 6 hours straight, X11 and I pushed software around, moved render frames to my primary machine, assembled bits into the movie and inch, by inch it got done.

Our sysadmin came by to tell me he had never seen system loads hit these levels. I had many of the machines buried doing frames as fast as they could.

On that day, X11 and a fine UNIX with great tools shined! Got the movie done and written to tape just an hour before the transport person would not make it overseas to the show.

That was multiuser graphical computing in action.

I had been learning UNIX under high pressure to give it up and go all Windows. After that experience, no way. Not gonna happen.

These days I still use Linux everywhere I can. And one last thing:

X11 works great. Being able to remote display is powerful. I was very impressed when I used X to render on a user box, or few.

At any given time, I have forgotten some UNIX, but what I remember always gets me through whatever challenge of the day is.

Go X11! Multi user graphical computing can be amazingly powerful. Would be a shame to lose out on that capability.

     I use my retro machines in exceedingly boring ways

Yes! The Apple is just good enough to get most things done and the cards and slots make it a great 8 bit workstation.

4 colors just is not quite enough. And on many systems we have sprites to add that little bit of extra color needed to make everything stand out well enough to not be a problem. The Apple lacks sprites, but does have 6 colors to use instead.

2 colors is a special case, and so long as the pixels are roughly square and are of a decent size, 2 colors is also enough to do most anything minus color.

The second best thing about Apple 2 graphics is that it is artifact graphics! Normally, this kind of thing is not desirable. "Real" colors driven by some graphics chip offer a real color signal of some kind. And with that, offer more overall colors in more hues and often intensities. But, unless the video system is really fast, that color capability often comes with a price, namely pixels that are twice as wide as they are tall. The pixel art aspect ratio is a bit funky, and is often a poor match for many images.

IBM CGA, TANDY Color Computer 3 and some others do offer 320 pixel or greater 4 or more color displays. These individual pixels are nearly square.

The Apple, due to how artifact graphics tend to work, offers a 280 pixel color display that does allow a single pixel to be a color pixel. And it is a nearly square pixel! ( some TVs do mangle it all up into twice as wide as tall anyway)

In fact, it takes two adjacent pixels with the same value to get white or black; otherwise each pixel will be a color pixel.

This little detail is what makes Apple 2 graphics stand out, despite the machines age and very limited video system.

And the last thing about Apple graphics I really like is how using patterns in ways very similar to what one would do on a monochrome display yields a very plausible perception of more colors!

Really great pixel art is possible and we have seen a ton of it over the years.

Breakout was the first title I played on a VCS and it seemed fantastic at the time!

For anyone interested in exploring this idea without having to go full on assembly warrior, give Batari Basic a try. It's actually quite well done and it exposes the limited resources of the VCS in an easy to understand way.

Your basic program is compiled down to 6502 machine language and it all runs at basically native speed.

I found it extremely productive. One can knock out a simple game concept in an hour.

And yes, the sharp limits really does boil down to less is more. You won't find yourself looking through tons of options and or making one of a very large number of possible choices either.

Just curious:

TTL, like an Apple

Custom chip from say, TI?

Microcontroller?

FPGA?

Hey, I noticed you have an SGI keyboard in the background in the photo on your project page.

I have the same one! And I absolutely LOVE that keyboard. Should I end up with one of your neat machines, that is the keyboard I would use with it.

I used that keyboard with both an Indy and O2 SGI IRIX machines, BTW.