Why this topic comes up every so many months proves that it's impossible to pick a set of years, bracket them, and declare, A-ha Vintage! Doing so causes one to extend the brackets every year or two like the Julian calendar before it became clear for the need of a leap year. Computing has eras, and one would evaluate a device, software or whatever as "vintage of a particular era." That's pretty much it, simple and flexible. Eras overlap, perspectives change, markets evolve. Using years alone to define vintage computing is impossible. It might be interesting to note that many of the original arguments we had on the subject back when we formed this club were about whether to allow the IBM PC/XT in as vintage. At the time the consensus was no, the IBM PC was too new to be vintage. When we did the huge IBM PC exhibit at VCF 5 or whatever it was the controversy was that it was too early to allow an exhibit about the IBM PC. I remember Evan was kind of against it at the time but we did it anyway. BIll kennettclassic.com On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:53 PM Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hi Bruce,
VCF, as a national organization, does not weigh in on what is and is not vintage.
VCFMA (MA = Mid Atlantic) takes the perspective of scope and also does not weigh in on what is and is not vintage. The decision there was that the cut off date is 1995. This doesn't mean MA is uninterested in post 1995 computing equipment and certainly doesn't mean MA thinks anything post 1995 is explicitly *not* vintage, but it does require that the Steering Committee make an active decision about a potential incoming donation on equipment newer than 1995.
Scope is extremely important at the museum level as no organization has an infinite amount of display or storage space. My favorite example is the Homecomputermuseum in the Netherlands. They have some absolutely amazing displays that are totally within their scope. MA also has some absolutely amazing displays at Infoage that are totally within their, very different, scope.
I love living in a world where places like LSSM (just got their Cray working!), System Source (just acquired a Lisa 1!), Homecomputermuseum (recently became home of the world's largest collection of CD-i media!), the Infoage VCFMA museum, and on and on all have different scopes. No one organization can store and display everything.
As to brands, sometimes the minor brands are the most interesting. I'm particularly fond of the Zorba luggable, for example. What is kept by MA is entirely dependent on what is already in inventory and available storage space.
I hope this helps!
Best wishes,
-Adam
--- Adam Michlin Director of Marketing Vintage Computer Federation
On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 5:43 PM Bruce via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Neils post prompts this lurker to inquire: Just how old need a computer
be
to be of interest to VCF? PC was - what? -- 1980? AT after that. XT even later. What about minor brands, etc.? Bruce NJ
On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 1:42 PM Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I'm doing a bit of cleanup around the house an suddenly found an IBM XT (think it's really a real XT).