<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">It's not really that dissimilar to collecting vintage synthesisers, is it? Yes, we can easily run a software A500, but a real one (or an almost real one) is much more fun.<br class=""><br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>Yeah, you’re right, its quite similar of course. And in some cases there are even synthesis features to explore as well .. </div><div><br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">Makes you wonder: would there be retro iPhones in 20 years time? For that retro experience with a clunky phone, bezels, and a home button.<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><div class=""><br class=""></div>I seriously doubt it actually. One of the things that has made retro computers so interesting and viable to newcomers is that they are an open platform. I don’t think that the retro- scene would be nearly what it is today if it weren’t for the fact that folks are still writing software for them - and in some cases, its just truly bloody incredible .. case in point, this years 10-liner BASIC program winner, which managed to implement a full dungeon-crawler adventure game in just 10 lines of BASIC code:<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><a href="https://bunsen.itch.io/the-snake-temple-by-rax" class="">https://bunsen.itch.io/the-snake-temple-by-rax</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">(Disclaimer: I’m biased of course, since Oric was my first ‘real’ computer)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We will have to see whether this holds true for the iPhone too - but I’ve got a drawer full of junk iDevices these days, and I’m really not sure its going to be as appealing to go back to them, in .. say, 10 years time .. considering the hoops one has to jump through now just to get a dev environment set up. I guess it’ll be somewhat feasible if there is the requisite MacBook rig already set up with the dev tools in the drawer as well, but even now its hard to get these old machines properly set up to do ‘open’ development work.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Anyway, lets hope we can return to this subject in a few years time and see how things progressed ..<br class=""><div class="">
<meta charset="UTF-8" class=""><div><br class="">j.<br class="">—<br class="">Jay Vaughan<br class=""><a href="mailto:ibisum@gmail.com" class="">ibisum@gmail.com</a><br class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<br class=""></div></body></html>