Subnostr

of all the computers you’ve used, which has been your favorite hardware/software combination, and why?

Hardware ceased to be relevant after the '90s. Prior to that I had many different favorites. Sparcstations, 8086, 68000, M365, Z80, SYS/7, Varian 620F, PDP-8, IBM 360, ECP-18 and others.

I am most nostalgic about the PDP-8 because it was the first machine I learned in any kind of detail; and was the machine I dreamed about owning while in High School.

The machine I enjoyed the most was the M365, which was a proprietary machine built by Teradyne Inc, based on a PDP-8 but greatly enhanced.

The machine I was most impressed by was the Sparcstation in the late 80s. By the standards of the day it was pretty zippy. It was fun to have a full bore Unix machine with X windows sitting on my desk.

From: atyh<-Vishalxl at 06/29 19:10

> of all the computers you’ve used, which has been your favorite hardware/software combination, and why?

CC: #[4]

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Discussion

nobody 2y ago

> Hardware ceased to be relevant after the '90s.

👀

I would say the difference between a cheap piece of junk and a nice machine is bigger than it’s ever been right now.

And technologically we’ve got ARM and RISC-V making inroads…

unclebobmartin 2y ago

Perhaps I should have said: "to me". I don't particularly care what hardware I'm using so long as I can run Clojure programs. ;-)

From: TheSameCat<-ringo at 06/30 07:58

> > Hardware ceased to be relevant after the '90s.

> 👀

> I would say the difference between a cheap piece of junk and a nice machine is bigger than it’s ever been right now.

> And technologically we’ve got ARM and RISC-V making inroads…

CC: #[4]

CC: #[5]

atyh 2y ago

Thanks for this.

This is actually what I was asking for. I have been going back in time, reading old BSD manuals from the mid-late 90's and some Plan9 stuff, experimenting with reverting back to many of what would be considered "old" tools, and I am finding that IMO, there is a level of quality and interoperability, with older BSD software that is largely missing from today's software, which seems to focus more on convenience (while often failing) rather than minimal stability and interoperability.

Not to mention that Unix pipes are one of the most brilliant things ever.

Ive been wondering if things were the same in the hardware world. Before the inevitable corporate homogenization that happens with all things over a long enough time curve. Hence the hardware question.