#emachines

A collection of fun old technology on display at the Spring 2025 DFW Retrocomputing Meetup in Grand Prairie, TX.

Ohhhh, good one. I'm going to make some enemies for these, I'm sure.

Least favorite vintage computer:

Apple I

Not for any technical reasons, or anything about its history. I happen to like and respect Steve Wozniak, and everything he did in the service of computing in the 1970s. His ROM monitor known as WOZMON is only 256 bytes so it can fit into a first generation 1702A EPROM, which is damned impressive. I use the newer EWOZMON regular basis on other 6502 machines.

The Apple I exemplifies a computer that no longer exists as a computer. Rather, it's become the legendary trading card for the ultrawealthy techbro types who seek to commodify the history of the home computer revolution that they didn't bother to study. It's been reduced to no more than a static display piece, and a cornerstone of revisionist history, ignoring the larger picture.

An Apple I is considered too monetarily valuable to risk applying power to or fixing, "gotta leave it original!" with failed, leaky capacitors, doing nothing. Well if you can't use it, it ceases to be a computer because it isn't computing anything. They had almost a dozen of them at VCF West XIV, most of which were under plexiglass with a hired guard to keep an eye on them because the high price they fetch. Only one was powered up at a time under the watchful gaze of experts, handling things with museum gloves. Unlike other exhibits, these were not available to be touched or interacted with (which defeats the whole reason people enjoy vintage computer festivals).

Assuming you look beyond the hype, and get your hands on a working Apple I? It turns out to be quite underpowered and limited -- which makes sense, Woz was optimizing the shit outta his part count and budget! I wish I had his skills. It was a major technical achievement to get it to do that much with so little. It's a TV Typewriter (RIP Don Lancaster) bolted to a minimal 6502. If i had one at my disposal in the 1970s, I'd probably do like the contemporary hackers did and modify it as my budget and skills allowed. But it's 2024 and an Apple I -- you aren't allowed to do that. No, if I had an Apple I, I could sell it and buy a house with that money.

If it weren't for all that, I think I'd probably just be indifferent to it, or maybe even like it for what it is.

Least favorite general computer:

eMachines eTower 600is

What a piece of shit. I had one when it was new, running Windows ME and it was hot garbage. I could not stand this underpowered excuse for a computer after a few months when the new computer sheen wore off. Floppy drive died too soon. Didn't come with the advertised 64MB of RAM (who puts 33MB of RAM in a computer?). Hard drive was only 10GB, kept filling it up. It was filled with bloatware, the keyboard was cheap garbage. I don't begrudge my parents for buying it, they didn't know any better and I was too young to have any say in the matter. That said, it endured the shortest tenure of any computer in my house to date.

dont exist anymore.

Commodore was responsible for introducing low cost computers to generations of people with it's Vic 20 and C64, and taught countless people with Commodore Pets in classrooms. Now all their assets are just names split between different businesses.

Atari brought gaming home, and some of the first 8 Bit computers as well. Now their name is just a stain on the box of Plug and Play consoles.

Compaq was responsible for the first ever IBM clones, bringing upon the dawn of the modern personal computer and at much cheaper prices than IBM. Now they're a defunct subsidiary of HP.

Tandy was huge in the 8 Bit era, and they popularized a graphics processer that was so much better than any prior graphical solution on MS-DOS computers so much that it became known as Tandy Graphics and Sound, even though it wasnt made by them. Now Radio Shack entirely is gone.

eMachines is pretty much the entire reason computers are mostly cheap now, their aggressive pricing against the market's competition forced the entire industry to cut their prices. Now all they are is a footnote in Apple documentaries about brands that copied the iMac G3.

And like, you'll never have brands like this again. There's no such thing as an "iconic" computer anymore, theyre all reskins of eachother. Commodore had the Vic 20, the C64, the 128, the Amiga, all icons. Atari had the 2600 console and the 400 and 800 computers. Tandy had the TRS 80, Color Computers. Compaq had their portable series. eMachines had the eOne. All icons in their own right, all unique, all special.

I cant think of a tech brand today that anyone would notice was gone. But these. These were special to people. And now theyre gone. Nothing remains.