Age cutoff, was: Recommendations for operating system

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that Hans Franke may have mentioned these words:

>...Asking me about the 'huge' old disks and showing
>complete surprise when I pulled an 8". Even having a hard time to
>understand the idea of 3" disks :))

I now keep a box of 8" disks on my desk just for that purpose - even though 
I've never owned a computer that actually used 'em. ;-)

>To conclude this (on my side), for me freedom is more important than any
>pure dogma, rules are to avoide problems, not to curb freedom, and no
>rule should be made just out of momentary feelings.

Yes, but what if that freedom *is* the problem? One of the things that have 
been stated by not only the original creator of the list (anyone remember 
his name? Sellam; Tony; Me (yes, me - this is a trivia question after 
all... ;-) a handful of others, but many folks on the list only know Jay as 
the list-marm) and Jay both have stated that this list should never 
degenerate to a "WinTel support list." And also, *IMHO* any Linux kernel 
version newer than... say... 1.3.x is also too new to be considered "classic."

If this is truly what's happening now, then I think the list won't be 
nearly as active (or subsequently, interesting) WRT the older machines.

>And properly used (and as hard as it comes for me to advocate this),
>Pentiums are by now quite fine on this list.

Ah, but only Jay has the power to set policy - if he states that Pentiums 
are off-topic for the list, then "so geht es Ihnen."[1]

[1] Auf English: "That's the way it goes."

See? I still remember a [very] little of my Deutsch... :-)

IMHO, what I'd like to see is a ballpark rule (15 years would be my "sweet 
spot") but allow/disallow families of computers if they're deemed "odd" 
enough to be instant classics. My Amiga (by the 10-year-rule) is still 
off-topic, having been built in '98.

Jay? Is it time to rethink the list charter, or should we all STFU?
;-)

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch at 30below.com

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