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Comment by RalfWausE | Hacker News Reader

Why not use old(er) Systems when they fulfill your needs? A computer is a tool, such as a typewriter, printing press, paintbrush or hammer. Would anyone argue about the age of a typewriter or hammer if its in good working condition?

In fact, i am using an Atari 520ST as my main computer since my laptop died a while ago. It started as an experiment, but now "it just works". I got network connectivity, email and (limited) internet access through a "Netusbee" adapter, and easy modern media access through a gotek floppy emulator.

Perhaps i am just crazy, but it simply works!

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A computer is more than a tool, it's multiple tools. No one argue about using an older typewriter, if it still does the job, but if you were to require 1000 copies, well that typewriter will seems a bit outdated and you may need a tool provided by a newer typewriter (like a digital one connected to an external printer).

Buying that adapter and floppy emulator cost more than a whole used computer. I guarantee you, if you just do what that Atari 520ST can do, it will "just works" too ;).

I can't guarantee anything about any others tools that a computer provide, like Teams, but lets be honest, if someone that do everything he needs on an Atari 520ST were to use theses tools, it seems like it wouldn't be by choice.

By the way, using older tools is certainly not a controversial opinion on here, you will find plenty that still works using terminals, vi, etc...

Nice - whatever maximizes your productivity is the right tool.

I went the opposite route: I basically built a gaming rig so I could get really good auto-complete in vscode.

Couldn't be happier... and I have a 'free' light show. :-)

VS code works great on my 2012 Mac mini. Maybe you just wanted a gaming pc ;)

I did enjoy building my own PC. I haven't built one since in 1997, so that was fun.

But you should see how fast vscode reloads :-)

For a lot of people productivity is determined by inspiration.

So in an odd way limitations that would normally reduce productivity can actually increase it.

I'm a hobby writer, and as a professional developer also I have a large retro- collection, and one of the things I love most about having a selection of machines to choose from, is that I can write my stories and ideas in peace - no Internet, no distractions.

The Olivetti M10 is a dream for when the ideas need to flow. I can't get anywhere near as much text written on my modern MBP, as I can in an hour on an Oric Atmos. These machines are great for my productivity.

Of course, I still take my MBP with me everywhere I go. ;) But when I'm in my home office, and need to write .. the older machines are great.

colleague is using Windows Phone to "prevent distraction". He says the only usable app left is Mail.

Sounds like me. :) My non-replaceable battery is starting to go; otherwise my Windows 10 Mobile Phone is still giving me just enough (maps, weather, music player, MMS, email, web, camera) to get by.

What maps app do you use?

That’s kinda funny that he only have Mail left. I avoid configurering email my phone to minimize distractions... and stress.

I am a huge retro fan. I go by the motto "Old computers never die, their users do."

Every computer that was ever made, is still just as useful as it was the day it was put into operation, for some reason. Okay, its not absolute: but as a first principle, computers are as useful as the user decides they are. Its just a decision.

I love my old machines. Its so fun, as a hacker and grey-beard developer who has seem some shit, to go back to the great ol' days of .. say .. CP/M .. and sit down and noodle on some code or other.

Or, hack around with tools like "8-bit Unity", which is an attempt to build a high-performance engine for as many 8-bit machines (6502-based) as possible, with modern toolsets. Actually, this is bonkers enough I just have to make sure you know about it, in case you don't already:

http://8bit-unity.com

One set of tools, tons of machine targets, and .. who knows what these systems will get up to, when this gets into there right hands ..

You'll run into a lot of non-EE advice from people who haven't run the numbers or accounted for all the costs of electrical power vs modern hardware equivalent costs and given GIGO analysis, their estimate of the financial breakeven point is mere months. When in reality its sometimes never or thirty years or similar when using actual numbers.

>A computer is a tool, such as a hammer. Would anyone argue about the age of a hammer if its in good working condition?

The computer is not a tool ‚such as a hammer‘, since the progress in computer innovation obviously outpaces the progress in hammer innovation.

It is all about the features, not the age. You are definitely not crazy for using whatever tool you enjoy using, though.

Only as a side note, about the use of "legacy":

https://jdebp.eu/FGA/legacy-is-not-a-pejorative.html

>It is all about the features, not the age

Tell that to someone doing basic tasks such as reading textual articles online and sending emails via some gmail web interface

I'm not recomending anything to anyone.

I'm pointing out that the reason most people buy new computers don't apply to hammers at all.

Through the 80's and 90's, Yngwie Malmsteen's keyboard player Jens Johansson was programming on an Atari ST. Even though there was so many more modern systems, he liked the ST because everything he needed to do was stable and didn't fail on him. Why throw away a good thing?

My favorite computer of all time was my Atari 1040ST. Having built in MIDI meant so much for me when I was in my teens! Would love to have another.

I thought you were being sarcastic until I read you second comment! :D

This sounds interesting. Would you mind to elaborate on your workflow and what you do with it specifically? I'd love to see some screen shots.

I work (apart from my sysop dayjob) as a it-trainer, so i need to design handouts for my students for which i use "Singum!", an old, but really nice DTP software. Normally i print the handout on my Epson LQ-500 dot-matrix printer (which produces really nice prints for an dot matrix printer) and photocopy them in the institute i teach in. I need to maintain attendance-stats, lists of exam-results and other spreadsheets, for which i use "VIP-Professional", it is Lotus 1-2-3 compatible and i have a small tool that converts its spreadsheets into *.csv if i need to send the files to someone with a more modern system. For the normal letter writing etc. i use "Papyrus".

I was thinking to put this whole "using an ancient computer in modern times" thing into an article for a while now, it seems i will have to stop procrastinating on this matter and start writing in the next few days ;-)

WRT ancient see http://www.retrochallenge.org/

Last years entrants had more homemade computer designs than usual. Historically there seem to be "a lot" of pdp-8 and IBM mainframe type entrants.

No desire for unicode? I'm not sure of the charset on Atari. What about newlines?

I am willing to bet that quite a few more households have at least one hammer than households that have a typewriter. I'm also willing to bet that there are far more houses that have multiple hammers than those who have multiple typewriters. Some tools are so ubiquitous a lot of people have enough of them for a construction team. Flat screw drivers? Scissors?

They are tools, for sure. But some tools aren't so obsolete that today's youth would struggle at first to use them.

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