“The furnace in my house hails from 1969. An expert came to service it. Should I switch it out for a new one, I asked him,” Chris Matyszczyk reports for ZDNet. “‘No way,’ he said. ‘In those days, things were built to last. It’s like a Ford Thunderbird.'”
“Which is why I find myself a touch unsurprised at the events that transpired in Professor John Pfaff’s parents’ attic,” Matyszczyk reports. “Pfaff, a Fordham law professor, took to Twitter at the weekend to offer his personal tale of product durability.”
“As he began to witness the resurrection of games such a Adventureland, Olympic Decathlon, and even — I didn’t know this had existed — Neuromancer, he considered the effect this would have on his children. Specifically, on their historical perspectives,” Matyszczyk reports. “He found old floppy disks and even a letter addressed to him, written in 1986 and typed by his dad on the computer.”
Oh.
My.
God.An Apple IIe. Sat in my parents’ attic for years. Decades.
And it works.
Put in an old game disk. Asks if I want to restore a saved game.
And finds one!
It must be 30 years old.
I’m 10 years old again. pic.twitter.com/zL7wWxOo36
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
My kids thought things were insanely retro when my wife and I played NES Super Mario on the oldest’s Switch.
Tomorrow morning their definition of retro is going to shift significantly. pic.twitter.com/cwpMyvCoYw
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Just found this letter my dad typed to me in 1986, when I was 11 and at summer camp.
I REALLY WONDER what my theory abt the daily newspaper comics Spider-Man was.
My dad passed away almost exactly a year ago. It’s amazing to come across something so “ordinary” from him. pic.twitter.com/Aog3MiSnXN
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) February 17, 2019
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We posted this specifically from a 27-inch iMac (Mid 2011) because we can.
Macintosh. You get what you pay for, and then some!
You could go all the way to the bank with hardware under Jobs. I still have a desktop from the 80s that still works.
Under Cook, especially with all the keyboard, screen, video card, and motherboard problems, you won’t get as far as the Salvation Army.
Wa-wa-wa. Complain-complain-complain. What a bitter, petty, whinylittlebitch you are, zeroloser. And such a coward… you can’t even post under your original name.
Signs that it is zeroloser:
1. Often first post.
2. Incessant complaining about Tim Cook.
@donnell’s semen
Go away troll, you’re no longer welcome here.
🖕off you miserable 🍆
Why not? If properly stored, it should last another 100 years.
Ahh yes, Scott Adams Adventureland. Sure was primitive, but fun. You actually had to hand draw maps for that one. At least I did.
Back then, an external floppy drive cost like $300 in the 80’s. A small fortune.A 500MB hard drive was ginormous. Hell, a 40MB hard drive was huge. Amazing how far we have come.
This is nothing to brag about. Any computer should last for decades if not damaged and stored in “normal” environment.
I own an Apple II+ and two Apple IIGS. They all work fine. They were built to last.
Computers from back then are hardy.. I still have my C64 and C128 in working order. Even have a 3.5 floppy drive for them that used ED disks. For those unfamiliar with EDs they are the level above HD. I think at the time, after formatting SD held 360k, DD held 720k, HD held 1.44M and ED held 2.88M.
Sure the hardware is great… until the latest software patch makes it unusably slow, or breaks the programs you need.