This is one of the most insightful talks I have ever seen on Youtube. I highly recommend it!
What makes it stand out particularly is the careful collection and articulation of concrete examples and historical references.
What makes it stand out particularly is the careful collection and articulation of concrete examples and historical references.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25714719
Jonathan does a better job than I did explaining the premise of how retrocomputing isn't just a means to nostalgia, but a means to make sure and verifying we've improved personal computer hardware/software since the initial boom. Emulators don't give us the insight into the whole stack or understanding on the true reliability of these old systems.
As Jonathan says, if our laptops today aren't capable of 99.999 percent uptime, then none of the software runnning on it can be either.
In the days of the Amiga or the Archimedes, it was quite possible to boot entire app or os/app combo and just leave the computer on indefinitely, without it crashing itself even if untouched.
Unfortunately, it is a really shallow analysis of this topic. He'd do well to speak to experts in history of technology/science when drawing such huge conclusions about humanity. This is just enough history to get people into trouble.