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Should Pentium II/III Systems Have a Forum?

Should Pentium II/III systems have their own forum?

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 66.7%

  • No

    Votes: 6 28.6%

  • Unsure

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .
32-bit processors were supported the 16-bit ISA bus, but the ISA bus itself was a mixed bag. EISA boards were more or less a lost cause and VESA held its own for while. I enjoyed the ISA/VESA slots on some of the early PCI boards.
 
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Agent Orange said:
32-bit processors were supported the 16-bit ISA bus, but the ISA bus itself was a mixed bag. EISA boards were more or less a lost cause and VESA held its own for while. I enjoyed the ISA/VESA slots on some of the early PCI boards.
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I remember a 486 dx2 system i had with a vesa video card which gave me 24bit graphics. At the time I thought it was pretty nice.
 
I've always seen Vintage computing as pre-IBM PC, in 1981. But this is just my opinion, which, honestly, is probably not as competent as many other who frequent these forums. For me, it stems from my own experience as I watched and participated in the PC wars. The IBM PC changed everything and created a whole new environment in which I could participate as a user. Before the IBM PC there were a large number of micro computers vying for my attention. After the IBM PC most of them went away. That, for me, is the dividing point for "Vintage" computers. The IBM PC/XT, and probably the AT, are included since they were contemporary with other micros trying to capture the market.

I do not consider Pentium II/III as vintage and certainly not the P4. But I do see them as old retro computers that had an interesting part to play in the PC industry. Mostly for gamers in the home market. They competed with the consoles for gamers. But in our small business we really didn't care to upgrade from our PC's and AT's since they still got the work done. I didn't even upgrade to a 486 until well after Window 95 was out. The next time we upgraded was to XP on P-III's.

So, my opinion is to lump PII/III/4 together into something "after" vintage computers.

Seaken
 
@seaken, I think you're forgetting that in the 1980s, schools were full of Apple II-family computers. Apple had a very aggressive marketing program to educational market. This resulted in a large community of future loyal customers. It was well under way by the time the PC came on scene. The division persists today--there are Apple people and then there's everyone else.
 
yeah but there are also people like me. The ones baited by the Apple ii in school... Who love the apple ii... but thats it. a few macs are a curiosity to me sure but i have no real love for them. I love the apple ii line but thats where I draw the line with Apple.. again my first home pc was an ibm 5160 but i have a fondneas for the apples we had in school. macs were a "Lesser steve" thing.. or is it lowecase steve thing?
 
Dunno, but I can recall seeing pallet-loads of Apple II systems stacked at a local school headed for the recycler in the early 90s. Strange that they're prized now by the collector community.
 
Yes, I agree that Apple belongs in the Vintage. Maybe even the Commodore Vic20 and C64. The Lisa and Mac also. It's not all about IBM for sure. There are lots of others. But definitely DEC, Altair, IMSI, and their ilk are Vintage in a way that many more "modern" PC's are not. In my opinion the P-II/P-III/4 and Athlon are more like "modern", but for sure they are "old computers".

Seaken
 
But we had this discussion Chuck. I remember when this hospital here in CT was selling Apple Lisas for #15.00 DEC alphas and DEC rainbows for $5.00 (I wanna say sometime around 1992 to 1994). all these things bottom out before they start to go up again in value and collectibility.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Yeah, I know over the last 15+ years, we've had this discussion a few times. It seems to me that many of the discussions here inhabit Groundhog Day.
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yeah.. i think at this point its safe to say i repeat myself a bit.

regardless we all have our likes and dislikes.
I like to root for the underdog and its nice to see systems like the matell aquarius and Coleco Adam get some attention in the past year.

You all know my opinion on vintage computers. But where do we draw the line? It would literally pain me to see ipads , tablets ans ereaders show up here... or god forbid the idiotboxes formally known as cellular phones.. Can we please at the very least have an agreement that those are not an avenue under the umbrella of this forum?
 
@VERAULT , I agree with you. The original question was whether the P-II and P-III should get a spot in the forum. Personally, I don't consider them "Vintage". But I am okay with sharing conversations about other old computers that we have interest in that may not be vintage. But it's hard to imagine the iPhone and iPad becoming part of the general discussions. But, whatever. Like was said earlier, we can always ignore it.

Speaking of Vintage, just watching a YT video by Tech Time Traveler on the Altair 8800. Now that's vintage! Looking inside it reminds me of my old NorthStar Horizon.

Seaken
 
VERAULT said:
yeah.. i think at this point its safe to say i repeat myself a bit.

regardless we all have our likes and dislikes.
I like to root for the underdog and its nice to see systems like the matell aquarius and Coleco Adam get some attention in the past year.

You all know my opinion on vintage computers. But where do we draw the line? It would literally pain me to see ipads , tablets ans ereaders show up here... or god forbid the idiotboxes formally known as cellular phones.. Can we please at the very least have an agreement that those are not an avenue under the umbrella of this forum?
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[off topic warning]

I'll hate to see the day my iPhone 13 is discussed in the VR Metaverse (or whatever the hell it'll be called then) as a "vintage computer" because I hate it enough NOW...

I switched back to a Kyocera flip phone for a reason.
 
Vintage is always in the eye of the beholder. Remember that we have members who were born after the introduction of the Pentium II (1997) and the Pentium III (1999). For many, their first computer is a subject of nostalgia, no matter how many years old the system is.

I’m quite sure that there are young people who feel that the iPad 1st generation is vintage, though I wouldn’t personally see it that way.

We take input from the members here to help decide what systems are appropriate for discussion. I’m quite sure that we will be requested to add the Pentium 4 (2000) and the Itanium (2001) fairly soon, along with the PowerPC G4 (1999) and G5 (2002).

- Alex
 
ajacocks said:
Vintage is always in the eye of the beholder. Remember that we have members who were born after the introduction of the Pentium II (1997) and the Pentium III (1999). For many, their first computer is a subject of nostalgia, no matter how many years old the system is.

I’m quite sure that there are young people who feel that the iPad 1st generation is vintage, though I wouldn’t personally see it that way.

We take input from the members here to help decide what systems are appropriate for discussion. I’m quite sure that we will be requested to add the Pentium 4 (2000) and the Itanium (2001) fairly soon, along with the PowerPC G4 (1999) and G5 (2002).

- Alex
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As a resident younger member, my opinion is technology-based:

Anything Pentium I and before across all architectures - vintage.
Pentium II/III/early P4 - tweener. IMO the PowerBook and iBook G3 computers fall in this category as well.
Anything Pentium 4 HT and beyond - not vintage.

Of course, a system doesn't have to be "officially" classified as vintage for me to find it nostalgic and/or interesting. I own an eMac that I consider part of my collection and find to be very nostalgic, though perhaps not 'vintage' just yet.

But since time does nothing but slip away, it'll get there eventually...
 
Chuck(G) said:
@seaken, I think you're forgetting that in the 1980s, schools were full of Apple II-family computers. Apple had a very aggressive marketing program to educational market. This resulted in a large community of future loyal customers. It was well under way by the time the PC came on scene. The division persists today--there are Apple people and then there's everyone else.
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Apple's aggressive marketing campaign sort of backfired on them. My first exposure to apple computers was using the black and green screen systems in my elementary school computer lab... in the mid 1990s. My family's(then woefully-obsolete) windows 3.1 386 back home blew those apples out of the water.


Then of course I'll never forget the other entertaining bit of my childhood. I only ever got to see the inside of that lab a time or two because I had to stay back in the classroom to work on my cursive while the other students learned how to type. Because according to my teacher "in high school, your assignments will not be accepted unless they are written in cursive." First day freshmen year: all assignments must be typed. Do not bother turning it in if its not typed. I still laugh about this. I also never learned to type correctly.
 
I tried to turn in a homework assignment that was created in GeoWrite on my C64, when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and was told that nobody in the "real" world typed documents on computers. This would have been 1985-1986, when, of course, the computerization of offices was well underway.

I responded by typing my next assignment on my father's Army-vintage portable Smith-Corona typewriter. I'm still not sure who won that argument.

- Alex
 
ajacocks said:
I tried to turn in a homework assignment that was created in GeoWrite on my C64, when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, and was told that nobody in the "real" world typed documents on computers. This would have been 1985-1986, when, of course, the computerization of offices was well underway.

I responded by typing my next assignment on my father's Army-vintage portable Smith-Corona typewriter. I'm still not sure who won that argument.

- Alex
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I think you did. I definitely lost.
 
VERAULT said:
You all know my opinion on vintage computers. But where do we draw the line? It would literally pain me to see ipads , tablets ans ereaders show up here... or god forbid the idiotboxes formally known as cellular phones.. Can we please at the very least have an agreement that those are not an avenue under the umbrella of this forum?
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I wonder if they'll ever catch on as a hobby like the stuff we deal with on these forums. Once the support for them ends, they essentially become a brick. There's no official way to install an OS on them, so I have trouble seeing them becoming anything more than a static museum piece. I think they tend attract a different crowd anyway.
 
Bentendo64 said:
I wonder if they'll ever catch on as a hobby like the stuff we deal with on these forums. Once the support for them ends, they essentially become a brick. There's no official way to install an OS on them, so I have trouble seeing them becoming anything more than a static museum piece. I think they tend attract a different crowd anyway.
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There are literally dozens upon dozens of videos with clickbaity titles in photos of young guys in their 20s and thirties clamoring and bragging to be able to fix these things I constantly have to remove them from my YouTube feed along with the same age group guys working on Pentium 4 machines with the obviously incorrect retro or vintage computer titles. So yeah plenty of people making sacrifices to the altar of jobs and the like.
 
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