As everyone knows in the mid 80's companies making home/small business computers fell under huge pressure to produce IBM compatibles or face going out of business. IBM totally dominated the enitre computer market (PC, Mini, Mainframe) then. There were exceptions of course. 8-bit home computers that were cheap survived, early high-end workstations, desktop publishing machines, etc. Look up the marketing info you will see what I mean. Fast forward to 1997 or so, when "vintage computing" as we know it today started, people wanted to focus on the computers that came before the IBM PC. IT was kind of a rebellion against how boring modern computers at the time had become. In particular interest was the homebrew era (73-79) stuff and the computers by companies who went out of business due to IBM market dominance. Add in the home gaming machines and you have "vintage 1997 vintage computing". That's why Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, etc. produced in the 80's were "OK" but the IBM PC was not. If you wanted to do an exhibit at an early VCF, the peer pressure at the time was to exhibit things like the SOL-20, Altair, RCA Cosmac Elf, etc. Stuff from Byte magazines in 1975 were the show stoppers. There was an equal contingent of cool DEC hardware. Basically the culture was "anything but IBM because IBM made computers boring and corporate" IBM mainframe hardware was OK though. Each subsdequent VCF year brought more and more Commodore, Atari, Tandy and Apple stuff. Today these manufacturers make up a majority of the shows. "vintage 2023 vintage computing" is often dominated by 8-bit hardware, Amiga, MAC, SGI, NeXT, stuff like that. DEC and S-100 systems are getting quite rare in VCF's now, but there are the dihard exhibits of these. And of course this is just a generalization, there are always rare and interesting things from foreign lands, mods, etc. The 30th anniversary of the IBM PC was I think the first time there was an IBM PC exhibit, and it only contained the very first models, CP/M, etc. On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 11:11 AM Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
There are so many people out there with IBM and compatibles that are from the early 80s. They really should be considered vintage as well as “retro”
Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.
On Jan 27, 2023, at 10:39 AM, Jeff Galinat via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I have heard the argument you describe. The x86 PC thing is something I never understood at all. The IBM PC was released in 1981 and the XT was released in 1983 both predating the Mac. I just don’t get it. Jeff Galinat
On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 4:39 AM Jeff S via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
The IBM XT would work, too, but there's still that hanging argument that x86 PC systems will never be considered "vintage" in any way.