what is it with old stuff

[prowla]

Progress does not necessarily mean improvement.
An old Strat or a '57 Les Paul are the most precious guitars today.
Computers have not fundamentally advanced since the 80s. In fact, they probably took a wrong turn in the 90s and who knows when/if they'll recover.
Audio has been hampered by the early adoption of digital in the form of CD.
Houses are pretty much no different than 30 years ago.
Plasma and LCD TVs aren't better than the good old CRT (but they do take up less space).
I'd say cars are probably better now than they were back then, medicine too, and communications certainly.
But most other things are not really better.
We now look to pay more for organic food, like our parents used to grow on their allotments or in their (large) gardens.
In terms of way of life, we hanker back to days where you could drive out to the countryside, as we live in the rat race.
We sit here 35 years on saying Hendrix was the best.
Movies and music are busy re-hashing new versions of previously released material.
So, as I say, progress does not necessarily mean improvement.
No siree!

 

[zener]

theres a lot in what you say that rings true.
So you classic HiFi types what you using
I'm still an anologue fan LP12/Ekos/Arkiv etc etc
and I also run a CRT TV , the last Toshiba made , its spanks the arse off Plasma and LCD.

 

[Richard C.]

Yes, the Post Office used to run Bantams ...

This has absolutely nothing to do with HiFi (which, incidentally is no Hi-er now than it was 50 years ago) but there was a time when anyone could turn up at Brands Hatch on a Wednesday afternoon and for a very modest fee, scare oneself to death on the Club circuit.

I had a Norton "International" - same as the "Manx" but one OHC insted of two - and rather fancied myself on this machine. Imagine my shame and embarrassment at being beaten, around the corners at least, by some upstart on a GPO red "Bantam". It probably still had the saddle bags! Private citizens had grey ones. Dreadful bike and only marginally more performance than an NSU "Quickly" - just to increase the level of my chagrin!

Zener - I don't suppose it's a "Goldie"?

Richard.

 

[zener]

"I dont suppose its a goldie" , I dont know Mick hasnt said
Your story reminds me of one a mate told me. He was riding around brands hatch on his Blade , going into paddock hill bend when this guy on a CB500 goes past him flat out around the outside , when he got back to the pits , he found it was Neil Hodgson ,

 

[SimonB]

Prowler,
Ok I am with you on alot of what you said, but I think this needs abit more justification :-

Progress does not necessarily mean improvement.
Computers have not fundamentally advanced since the 80s. In fact, they probably took a wrong turn in the 90s and who knows when/if they'll recover.
No siree!

Simon

 

[prowla]

Digital computers are based around the Von Neumann architecture, with a CPU, a separate memory, separate i/o, and external storage. The CPU controls everything, on precise clocked intervals.
The BBC micro and Sinclair ZX81 worked in exactly that way.
Present day systems do just the same.
All that has happened is that they've got faster.
The dominance of M$ has completely stymied development of computing, and the best OS at the moment is UNIX (which was originally implemented in 1969!).
Integration/convergence is still a pipe dream, and natural interaction (eg. speech) is nowhere.
In the 80s/90s, there were a couple of interesting developments: the Transputer, and the NeXT, but they failed.
Apple's OS is just the same.
The current state of computing is a joke.

 

[mikegreenwood]

Nostalgia's not what it used to be!!!!!

 

[SimonB]

Paul,
Ok the basic architecture is the same… that’s not so surprising. However the cost, and prevalence of the technology are worlds apart from the early days.

At the beginning they were huge room sized beasts that were tended to by an army of specialists. Such beasts that only half a dozen or so would be required in the whole world. Now they are in almost any non organic item and a few organic ones as well.

It just shows how well the technology has progressed that you feel that them not developing into an artificial life form is a failure.

Simon

 

[RJohan]

Highly non topic, but Paul is right here wen it comes to how computers has evolved. As an example, Eniac, often concidered as the worlds first working general computer was, in fact decimal, not binary as every computer is today. So, in a way, it has only gone downwards since the 1940's...

JohanR

 

[jackiechansthem]

There's good 'n bad in most era's. If something sounds good, it sounds good irrespective of when it was designed or made. I'm using a Meridian 506 because it makes wonderful music with a Linn Kolektor, a 20-odd year old Musical Fidelity P270 through a pair of B&W 800's.

Disproportionate in just about every way; age, manufacturer, price (definately!), but in my room to my ears (and my wife's }:-] ) it all sounds fantastic. The B&W's recently replaced my long-time love affair with Linn Isobarik's. Vastly different presentation and yes, a lot better, but the law of diminishing returns kicked in bigtime. They were the only speakers that made me feel the need to replace the 'Briks.

Just my 2 pennies-worth. Time to call my therapist, where's the couch I need to lie down

 

[prowla]

Paul,
Ok the basic architecture is the same… that’s not so surprising. However the cost, and prevalence of the technology are worlds apart from the early days.

At the beginning they were huge room sized beasts that were tended to by an army of specialists. Such beasts that only half a dozen or so would be required in the whole world. Now they are in almost any non organic item and a few organic ones as well.

It just shows how well the technology has progressed that you feel that them not developing into an artificial life form is a failure.

Simon

Nope - not an artificial lifeform.

But I think your answer shows an inherent acceptance that computers now are as they should be, and perhaps bit of a lack of imagination and appreciation of the alternatives.

I accept that they have got smaller and faster, but that's about it as far as improvements go.

 

[Paul R]

Given an architecture is Turing Complete then all that changes is speed/size/power.

What's lagging is software. Specifically I think the sort of stuff that is easy for humans and would be useful to automate. But if you think about ANPR type systems, facial recognition, watching CCTV outputs and spotting 'he looks like a terrorist/shoplifter/free thinker' etc. then there has been significant progress albeit mostly in the area of government oppression rather than personal liberation.

Paul

 

[prowla]

I'm thinking about:
- parallel processing: the transputer was probably ahead of its time.
- modular systems; ie. just plug in a box and it becomes part of the computing system.
- extensible processor bits (AMD used to do a 4-bit processor that you could just plug in modules side-by-side to make them 8, 16, etc. bits wide).
- home automation/integration; just walk into the house and your portable becomes part of the computer system.
- convergence: genuine integration of tv/hi-fi/computing/mail/etc.
- non-binary computing.
- HCI: speech recognition, voice output.
- object-based systems have been discarded.
- security; basically a joke.

Essentially what we've got now is the equivalent of a model-T Ford with a crank handle starter.
I've got an Atari ST and an Amiga, and today's PCs are no better - just a bit quicker.
The best commercial OS was originally written in 1970, and the market leader for personal systems is a pile of junk with a pretty face on it (and OSX is the same).

Applications are poo: Word is clunky, the leading spreadsheet is visicalc with a mouse (there was one called Improv some years ago that showed a better way forward, but IBM killed it), graphics ain't bad.
HCI is antiquated (the qwerty keyboard was designed to slow down typists, and the mouse is not the most intuitive tool to use).

IMHO, the only significant advances in recent years has been access to the Internet, and the WWW. But since I was using Ethernet, email, and hypertext in the 80s, I guess it's more of an availability thing than an innovation. The inspirational thing about the WWW was the conversion of a concept mooted in the 1930s into a simple implementation - HTML and the browser (but Apple dropped the ball by not taking Hypercard further and opening it up).

Talking of innovation, M$'s recent right to innovate campaign was a joke, since they have done more to retard the advancement of computing than any other player in the market. The registry is the single stupidest component of any computing system ever implemented anywhere ever! If I were to try and think of anything M$ have done of benefit, I would say their mice are pretty good, and Flight Simulator ain't bad.

So basically, computing in 2006 is way short of where it could have gone. (And I haven't even touched on analogue computing, biological systems, light-based computing, and other whizzy stuff.)

 

[Bob McC]

Time to remove Prowla from the simulation controller, he's getting a bit too close.

 

[RJohan]

When I started working with PC's about 20 years ago it took a minute, or so, to boot it in the morning. One was dreaming of the glossy future when they would have become so fast that they booted in the blink of an eye.

Today we are there, they have 1000 times higher clock frequency, soon they will have 1000 times more primary memory and god knows how large the hard drive is.

It still takes a minute to boot...

JohanR

 

[Have Fun]

I've been looking at many of the threads on here , but I cant get my head round this desire for old stuff. After all the whole idea of HiFi is to produce the closest sound to the original. Are you "old hiFi" folk suggesting nothing has improved in 30/40 odd years , or is it a thing like old cars , it harks back to a bygone age , a nostagia thing, or does some stuff really sound better . Just interested thats all.

Not so much nostalgia but curiosity .. when I see something old come on the market that was well thought of but originally out of my price league it means that I have the chance to satisfy that curiosity. In theory it should allow for potential upgrade, however even that is a rare event these days with some of the ludicrously high bids on e bay.

 

[Harry1212]

Re old hi-fi, I think that probably 95% of elderly kit is now justifiably landfill; it's the good stuff we remember and cherish.

Leak TL12.1's were fantastic even if the pre was so-so; my grandpa spent a months wages on his but the later solid state Leak amps were crap.

Cost no object stuff from times gone by generally has some merits but trawl the archives for the run-of-the -mill gear from the 60's and 70's and there are quite a few turkeys lurking. Philips Black Tulip anyone?

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, H.

 

[joel]

Re old hi-fi, I think that probably 95% of elderly kit is now justifiably landfill; it's the good stuff we remember and cherish.

Absolutely. But what percentage of modern kit is in fact landfill? I would guess that an awful lot is... maybe 95% is not too far off.
The days when real money was spent by real companies on real research in audio are long gone. What we have is the tiny rump of a once large industry chasing the shadows of high-end fashion in ever decreasing circles.
All IMHO, of course

 

[Michael L]

. As an example, Eniac, often concidered as the worlds first working general computer

I gather that it is considered by the US to be so, but the first programmable computer was COLOSSUS, used to break the Enigma codes ( and guess who made it...)

Regards

Mike

 

[martin clark]

And that's overlooking Babbage's Difference Engine, the first programmer being Ada Lovelace.