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Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

I think there is something kind of fun about purposefully using "outdated" software, and even valuable sometimes, in the same way that it's useful to use a dead language like Latin nowadays; it's not changing so there's sort of a bit of "equality" to it, for want of a better word.

For example, I've actually thought it might make sense for people to release new software on DOS or the Sega Genesis, simply because they're not being updated anymore, and as a result, there's a ton of great emulators for both that can run on pretty much any modern platform under the sun. A Linux program I write might not run under FreeBSD or AmigaOS, but I would bet that I could get basically nearly any SNES game running nearly flawlessly on them with an emulator.

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> in the same way that it's useful to use a dead language like Latin nowadays; it's not changing so there's sort of a bit of "equality" to it, for want of a better word.

You might think so, but reading scholastic Latin from the 1700s is radically different from reading classical Latin from the -100s. Cicero was writing in his own native language, and he used the wordings that came to him.

Isaac Newton was also, kind of, writing in his own native language. Latin was used only for the purpose of communicating with an audience; it was a channel by which you could encode English and someone else could then decode French.

But what you get by applying a set of rigid encoding rules to early modern English isn't all that similar to what you get by training an infant to speak classical Latin and then letting them express themselves in the way that feels natural to them. Scholastic Latin is much easier for the modern person to read than classical Latin is; it is essentially modern language under a thin disguise.

That sounds rather plausible and interesting. Does this Wikipedia article [0] cover the topic well or are there some hidden treasures buried by SEO?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Latin

http://morphcat.de/micromages/ here's a fun example of a great game recently released for the NES

There are a good number of old devices that still have a devout following. For MS-DOS you might check out e.g. Planet X3 [1]. Or how about Super Boss Gaiden [2], a game for a prototype console of which (AFAIK) only one unit is in existence (but you can play the game on an emulator, which apparently exists for this obscure console).

[1] http://www.the8bitguy.com/product/planet-x3-for-ms-dos-compu...

[2] https://playstation.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Boss_Gaiden

I knew about Planet X3 but somehow Super Boss Gaiden completely missed my radar. I will be playing this shortly!

Coding for obsolete platforms is analogous to black-and-white film photography with lenses of fixed focal length. Restriction breeds creativity by denying you access to the full gamut of easy, low effort solutions.

> can run on pretty much any modern platform under the sun

Which is why web apps shine. Near-universal reach.

Sure but even for web apps, you have to code around the fact the people might have outdated browsers, and even with current browsers you end up having to deal with rendering quirks of each.

When you use a truly "deprecated" platform, you have don't have to worry about that; the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive hasn't been supported in any official capacity for more than 20 years, meaning that basically any emulator made in the last decade or so will be "feature complete".

(I know there are a few bits of weirdness with emulating expansion chips for Virtua Racing, but my point overall still stands).

this is about their only redeeming quality to me, ease of maintenance and compatibility. From a design standpoint with all the mix of too many technologies on shabby scaffolding it is annoying. But you know what they say "it works". I have some high hopes for web assembly to reduce some of this. or at least hide it.

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