Whgat do you use your vintage systems for?

[Creideiki]

Well I've looked through the forums with the search, and unless I've not been through enough then this might be a good fresh post: What do you use your vintage systems for?

Just answer the question in the poll and if you like, comment on your systems further! Let me start...

As I don't really have any vintage systems (yet) I haven't really used them for much more then some playing about with emulated environs and getting accustomed with older schools of thought. When I do get my MicroVAX, I plan on having it replace my current (and highly non-functional) server. And if I ever get the VT103 I've been promised I plan on having it become an interactive museum piece (my former high school, as well as my university's computer science club wouldn't mind yet another wonky machine sitting about). My non-vintage PC 300/GL is just being used as a DOS gaming platform.

 

[Ole Juul]

I use a low resource, almost vintage, p133 self built, for my major file management and writing machine. I could really use anything new enough to have a hard drive for the same purpose. In the real vintage category, I use a Toshiba 3100, single floppy, for home inventory gathering.

If you are looking for more ideas, my personal feeling is that vintage machines are great for telnet and basic network diagnostics like traceroute. They are also good e-mail machines - especially if they have a hard drive.

 

[NathanAllan]

Mostly gaming, I'll admit. One letter gets typed and printed on anything with a printer and sent to my Mom. The Epson HX-20 letter was the most interesting. The rest is for gaming and seeing how far I can push any given machine to do something useful. Mostly gaming, though, older machines are excellent game systems.

 

[Bobthearch]

I voted "Hobbiest", but it's really more about curiosity and education.

The 70s and 80s were the golden age of "vintage" computing, the fast-developing and competing technologies. But to average people, computers remained unnecessary luxuries, impractical, and not particularly useful. The home gaming systems, like the Atari 2600, were the exception and it seems like most families had one of those. But a 'real' computer remained unaffordable to most.

Like most people who grew up during that time, I had very little interaction with computers. So my interest in vintage computers can be summarized as "Finding out what I missed," all those years ago.

 

[krebizfan]

I went with "hobbiest."

I justify keeping them around as a collection of spare parts and support for labratory systems. But really, I probably spend more on chiropactoric services than receive for any business the older systems might generate.

 

[Dwight Elvey]

Hi
Most are hobby but I do use my CanonCat when I need to enter and edit
a large amount of text. It has the best editor for actually using it as an editor.
Dwight

 

[barythrin]

Ideally I'd like to have all my systems set up as an interactive museum. My friends and I used to mess with them all a bit when we lived together. Now it's on that perpetual to-do list that's growing the wrong direction. It's still there and I'm kinda trying to get it all up in a structured fashion again. I tried to have them all plugged in and able to turn on instantly though I usually unplug everything when bad weather comes around and it tends to stay unplugged.

 

[carangil]

I went with 'hobbyist' I learned to program on vintage computers. When I was a kid and learning BASIC, it was on a Commodore, but it was in the early 90's! My family was always a couple of computer generations behind everyone else. That's why in 1999, I was using a 486!

I've recently gotten back into vintage computing, with the discovery of a TRS-80 COCO a few months ago at the last company I used to work for. They gave it to me, because they were going to throw it away, and they knew I like 'old crap.' I have it connected to my linux machine at home as a dumb terminal; it's basically there to run IRC. I don't really have a proper tv for it; I'm using a tv card in that same linux box as the display. (Which makes the whole setup bizarre).

Right now, I'm getting the stuff together to run a 486, recreating that same 1999 486 I had. I'm pretty much going to just run DOS games on it. I know, I could be using DOSBOX, but I don't think anything will matched the feel of DOOM and Descent on an actual DOS machine.

 

[cgrape2]

I like to learn about old systems and attempt repairs if needed.But I also like to use the old stuff for gaming.Nothing like a 486 for doing DOS games!
cgrape2

 

[Unknown_K]

Hobby stuff. Some for retro gaming, some to get my hands on hardware (or run software) I was interested in ages ago and could not afford at the time, others because they are different then what I am familiar with and wanted to check them out.

 

[tezza]

They are the physcial manifestation of my interest in 1980's microcomputer history.

Like a few others here I'd like (eventually) to have them set up on display somewhere with classic software and original docs. That's going to be a retirement hobby though, and there are quite a few years (at least 10 or more) to go before that happens. Thing is, I can't wait until then to collect them as most won't be around at prices I could pay.

In the meantime, they play a present hobby role in collecting the bits and pieces and refurbishing/reparing them (and keeping them going).

Tez

 

[Vint]

I went with 'museum piece, interactive' - but if you were to ask me a couple years ago, I would have answered 'hobby system'. I haven't used my dozen or so 8-bit machines as much as I first thought I would when I began collecting. But, I wouldn't part with any of them for the world. I guess that places them in the museum piece, interactive' category for me. Ideally I would like to have them displayed and running at will - but alas, space limits preclude that business. As things stand now, I continue to collect, although at a much slower rate and I try to fill niches in my interest as they crop up. I find I'm buying more documentation and magazines now than before (magazines will be disappearing from the Earth altogether very soon). Before I was mainly buying hardware.
I'm leaning more toward a 'preservation' of these old machines than anything else. My great fear is that when I turn one on, it will be dead. That hasn't happened yet - and I know I would immediately have to refill that gap with a like item, but the cost can only continue to climb, I believe. The good thing is that I collect what they originally made millions of, so there should be no shortage in the foreseeable future.
The bottom line is - I just want the 80's preserved. It was a grand time to live through. Of course so were the 70's, 60's, 50's and even some of the 40's - but then I'm now showing my age Along with that, I find I'm more and more starting to tinker with vintage PC's, although nothing as glorious as a 5150 - just some of the 90's machines. I'm building up a DOS hotrod right now.
I don't mean to write a book here - but let me explain something that I just learned about myself, after almost 66 years! I'm working on a DOS hotrod - for the pleasure of it. An Atari, Apple II, or Commodore is nice - but they are a little limited in 'customizing'. I prefer being able to get in the box to mix and match modules, parts, and the like. Back in the 60's I owned several muscle cars. In the 70's I owned 'nice' cars but with 'ordinary' motors. They are not nearly as memorable as the 'hot rod, muscle cars. The engines made all the difference in the world as to your fun power with these machines, and I see that now in the computers I like to fool with. Individualizing them may be 'my' wave of the future. Who knows, I may end up with one of these

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/picture.php?albumid=14&pictureid=352

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Right now, most of my vintage systems are packed away in storage. When I had the basement set up for them, I usually had 2-3 set up in full working order on a rotating basis. The rest lined one wall in semi-museum-like display. (The basement was not exactly 'museum quality' space, but they were displayed fairly neatly.)

Whenever we get around to remodeling the rest of the basement, one wall will be a very nice display area, with a desk with room for 2-3 to be set up at a given time. Mostly it'll be 'museum - static', with a couple rotating in and out of 'museum - interactive' status; plus probably one or two 'hobby' machines. (And old Mac set up for reading old Mac disks, an old PC set up for reading old PC disks, etc.)

 

[Darshevo]

I chose floor space reducer. I do keep my C= 128 out and play with it on a regular basis. My main usage of my PC oriented computers has become playing with early and alternate OS's (Linux, UNIX, BeOS, etc)

The collection has gotten well out of hand though. Probably fully half of my 1200 sq ft shop has been taken over by computers in various forms and ages that are not part of the continuous resale or recycle stream

-Lance

 

[Unknown_K]

I chose floor space reducer. I do keep my C= 128 out and play with it on a regular basis. My main usage of my PC oriented computers has become playing with early and alternate OS's (Linux, UNIX, BeOS, etc)

The collection has gotten well out of hand though. Probably fully half of my 1200 sq ft shop has been taken over by computers in various forms and ages that are not part of the continuous resale or recycle stream

-Lance

Pics or it didn't happen