On 08/19/2018 02:31 PM, Gordon 'gsteemso' Steemson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
It came as something as a shock when, after 25 years or so of using "Trash-80" merely as a streamlined way of saying "TRS-80," I first encountered someone to whom the term was strongly offensive. It took even longer for me to grasp just _how_ strongly it offended, simply because the Platform Holy Wars dispute had degenerated to "Mac vs. IBM" with rare interjections of "Amiga!" by the time I encountered it. The various 8-bit platforms remained in minor use by those disinterested in forking over non-trivial sums of money to get something more current, but had long since ceased to even be referenced in that futile conflict, let alone be actual contenders therein.
It's pretty offensive to me as well, as it has been since the 1980s, but not in a "holy wars" sort of way. It was then, as it is now, a sort of "lack of reverence" for something that was, in fact, a pretty amazing technological achievement. Nowadays it still pisses me off when I hear it, just like "Crapple" and "Commode Door", though I really have to laugh it off when giving museum tours. There's a certain (mostly younger) segment of society in which people seem to believe that it empowers them to denigrate something. I try very hard not to associate with such people. But for instances in which "Trash-80" (etc) are said for other reasons, ownership etc that has been stated in this thread, I've much less of a problem with it. The intent does matter. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA