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Comment by pigsty | Hacker News Reader

I’ve never seen a Vectrex, but having seen other vector displays on old arcade machines, it’s truly mind blowing.

The warm glow of those smooth beams has no modern equivalent in consumer hardware. Despite technically being old technology, and some machines being over 4 decades old, it can still blow young minds seeing a way of rendering so different from what we accept as the norm today and how it’s in many aspects even more advanced than modern screens.

Knowing it’s something that’s gradually being lost with time is pretty sad. Previous human technology advancements would often be lost in a hole and still be recognizable for what they were centuries later when they were dug up. It’s kind of strange that the tech we make since the computer revolution basically dies along with their creators and maintainers and basically just turn into future door stoppers.

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I’m not sure I follow your final conclusion… we mostly don’t use archeological artifacts do we? They are “recognizable” but so will old computers be 1000 years from now. With a good microscope you can still study the chips, etc.

If anything I expect computers from 1985 to be much better “preserved” than physical history from, say, 885, no?

Granted you have to resist the urge to use them as door stoppers and keep them in a controlled environment. But an archive is a lot cheaper/more stable than a living museum.

Just to use your example, you could dust off a 200 year old microscope and it’d be perfectly fine. If there’s a cracked lens, that’s an easy fix without any significant expertise.

Same with any old blacksmithing tools and so on. They’ll look old, but generally retain their functionality and a novice can repair them.

Old electronics require expert knowledge and specifically manufactured parts to fix. Knowledge of old electronics dies each year and the parts go away. A person who’s never heard of a Vectrex or see one in action would have no idea what it does. Even if they recognize that it has a screen, they wouldn’t be aware that it renders vectors and not pixels like nearly every other screen. Another 1000 years removed from the computing standards of today, people might not even be able to imagine what a typical desktop computer does when they look at it. But they’ll see tools from 885 and generally be able to guess what they’re for.

High tech things are very abstracted tools that are just going to look like useless boxes to future people. Most won’t know or care what they did. It’s weird to think about. Advances will also be lost with time without us realizing it. Vector screens are truly impressive, but people don’t know they exist. Will we someday get monochrome retinal implants and they’re convenient enough that people give up on traditional computer screens, and someday humanity forgets we all used to have full color displays with sound in our pockets? Who knows.

    we mostly don’t use archeological artifacts do we?

Well that's the thing, right? A 5000 year old sword or a 50000 year old pot are static. It's not quite the same as actually using and touching the objects, but you can see them in the museum and it's fine.

Something like a car engine or a video game machine, that's a collection of moving parts. No single part of them is interesting. It's how they work together. Problem is, each time you use them they get a little bit closer to death and they also get closer to death just sitting there in a climate-controlled environment.

You do notice a lot of things about older items by actually using them. Little touches, weight, balance, the way the design is remarkably nice for some particular use or other in ways and for reasons you wouldn't have guessed just from looking at it, the satisfying feel of a hinge or knob or pull. Our local art museum has a collection of elaborate silver tea services—originally intended for actual use, not just decorative—and I bet one would notice a lot of things about them by actually using them, that one is unlikely to spot or understand just by looking, but no-one's likely to ever use them again—at least not for quite a while.

Absolutely. You can't appreciate e.g. how wonderfully balanced a knife is until you use it.

But, it's a narrower gap than with a more complex machine.

I love the Atari vector games! There’s an excellent video by Retro Game Mechanics Explained on how they work: https://youtu.be/smStEPSRKBs

Recently I stumbled on some Tektronix videos on YouTube. Those vector displays are even more mind blowing than Atari’s arcade games. I hope I can get to see one in person someday.

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