What will be retro in 20 years?

[demolition]

Feeling a little philosophical this sunday so was thinking about the following:

I think that most of us are in this forum because we grew up with the Amiga and it was a central part of our life, so it will always have a special place for us. PC's were also around but they were mainly used for spreadsheets and other boring stuff :-), but the Amiga seemed to be able to handle most things well.

Do you think that any of the today's electronic 'toys' will have a similar status in 20 years for today's young people? It seems to me that kids today are very occupied with their PS3/X360 and when they're not at home, their iPhones. I very much doubt that there will be many working iPhones left in 20 years, but maybe some of the consoles?

While the Amiga was by many considered as a gaming console, it was also used by creative people to create music, graphics, animations, coding etc., which is not so much the case for modern consoles (it takes a lot more to get started on console coding than it did on the Amiga). Many current console games also require an online connection to be playable, which will not work in 20 years, unless someone creates a server emulation for it (if it doesn't already exist?).

Do you think 12 year olds today will need a CoD fix when they're 32? :-)

[wilshy]

I think we live in a very different world to when we were growing up. There will always be those who do look back fondly, whatever generation but right now the masses (remember the Amiga was part of the masses at one stage) have a very throwaway life. Music, phones, consoles etc. Games have invariably changed from what they were to the now iterative versions of the same game and that is what will be remembered. Will the kids of now look back fondly on Fifa 13? Of course not as they'll be playing Fifa 25 by then. Also the fact I couldn't play my XBLA games without being connected to the internet spoiled it for me to the point I sold my Xbox. I bought the games, why can't I play them whenever and wherever I am?

But that isn't to say there isn't much to applaud these days, however that is very much the minority, the niche instead of the masses. Even mass selling consoles like the MD, SNES, N64, DC etc etc hold special places in peoples hearts in a way that the current gens will never in the majority of people.

What I'm basically rambling about it when we were growing up, the majority had stuff they could remember if they wanted too, now it's very much the minority. Retro gaming & computing will still be us old gits until we all fall over and get buried. We ARE the retro generation. Enjoy it while you're not dribbling all over the carpet

[s2325]

Small kid from my work thought Bomberman is modern game so I showed him Mega Bomberman for Mega Drive and Dyna Blaster for NES. He played like it was PS3/PS2 game. You can test younger people by giving them audio tape and pen. Only some of them know that you can rewind tape with pen.

[diablothe2nd]

I'll never forget watching a show about times past on BBC. They got about 20 primary school kids in a room with a vinyl record player and only ONE knew what it was, but even then didn't know how to work it.

then there was this show where a family were moved into a house, and each episode the house and all it's technology was changed to be the decade they had to live. All the kids were bored, until the late 70's 80's came and the got an Atari and later a BBC Micro made me realise how lucky I was to be born in the early 80's. Any younger and i'll have been bored stiff, and older and i'd have missed a fantastic era in computing.

like wilshy said, kids these days are born into a disposable ethos. if something electrical breaks, throw it in the bin. if something broke when i was a kid my mum and i tried desperately to fix it. a waste not, want not mentality.

what i will never get over though is the way we're now getting accustomed to paying for digital goods that don't come on any media at all. kids growing up now will never know the value of holding a record, cd, cassette, floppy disk etc in your hand to load/play the software written on them. the true value of such goods is deteriorating such that kids will only have memories, and no tangible items they can hold and use to reminisce.

EDIT just to add to the vinyl record bit... about 6 months ago i went to play a record and tried to put the needle on the inside! i've gotten so used to the way cd's read inside out that i forgot that records went outside in!

[demolition]

It might be different today, but most of the people I grew up with who also had Amigas back then don't care about them at all today. For them it is simply an old relic which lost the fight to the modern PC. I think it is only a few of us who likes the old stuff, maybe because the machine was more than just a tool.

I just bought an A600 about a month ago from a guy where it had been stuffed in the back of a closet for 10+ years. He had practically forgot about it until he found it and put it up for sale. When I was coming to pick it up he said he had started feeling sentimental about it when he was testing it for the sale, since it was his first and only Amiga. I can understand that feeling, as I would probably never part with my Amigas or C64.

Unfortunately I sold my original A500+ long ago, but then again I got a good amount of money from it which I used to buy my first PC, which I also liked although it was very different. It didn't even have a sound card, so coming from an Amiga to a PC-speaker was a big step down..

I think perhaps the PSX which really changed the face of gaming (I always mentally divide gaming into the pre and post PSX eras) forever may be remembered fondly but hell, it`s probably already considered retro and I`m showing my age!

[Predseda]

There is a similar question: what was retro 20 years ago?

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by Predseda

There is a similar question: what was retro 20 years ago?

Atari STs

[TCD]

Time moves on and so does 'retro'. I think that lilalurl will agree that UT99 and UT2004 are already retro and the same goes for the Dreamcast. So even something that doesn't exist yet might be retro in 20 years. I'm quite sure that people will feel kind of the same about the PS3 or the XBox 360 in 20 years like we do about the C64, Spectrum, Amiga and so on. Of course not all of them, but the ones that share our 'genes' For us the games of today might not have the same 'impact' as the games from our youth, but imagine that your first game ever was Batman: Arkham City or Rage. You'd prolly feel the same way about it as you do about Bubble Bobble or Carrier Command. I guess music is a good example: In the 50's Charleston was 'retro' while Rock 'n Roll was 'hip' and then in the 70's Rock 'n Roll was retro and so on

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

I guess music is a good example: In the 50's Charleston was 'retro' while Rock 'n Roll was 'hip' and then in the 70's Rock 'n Roll was retro and so on

It depends really. Iron Maiden plays for over 35 years and they still are not retro - they are as fresh as new born band.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Predseda

It depends really. Iron Maiden plays for over 35 years and they still are not retro - they are as fresh as new born band.

Some things are just timeless

[Dastardly]

I believe in 20 years (probably a lot less) playing or watching anything on a flat 2D screen will be considered retro and a bit old fashioned.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Predseda

There is a similar question: what was retro 20 years ago?

This?

A friend of mine's dad had a Pong console, think it might have been the Atari one. We tried it around 1998 and it still worked great.

Also, my dad had en old TI calculator with a red LED display from the mid 70's. I remember playing with it maybe around 1985 (which means it couldn't really have been more than 10 years old) until it was thrown away (I probably broke it ).

Another question would be, how many Amigas will be left and working in another 20 years? Probably very few, so do like me and make sure nobody is allowed to throw one away and if it doesn't work, fix it or salvage the parts. I remember in the mid to late 90's that people were practically giving Amigas away (I remember finding an A500 in a dumpster where it unfortunately had been a while in the rain so it was beyond salvaging). I regret not buying a truck load back then.

[s2325]

I remember one scene from some part of Back to the Future - there were retro arcade machines, one with light gun. Kids from future were confused that you need to use hands to play game. I saw something similar - if I connect older mouse without scroll some kids and even adults have problems to scroll web page. My friend which is 10 years younger than me didn't know you can open mechanical mouse (to clean it inside).

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by demolition

This?

I dont think so. It was not retro, it was just an old crap that nobody wanted.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Predseda

I dont think so. It was not retro, it was just an old crap that nobody wanted.

Many teens today might say exactly the same about an Amiga.

I think that old device is pretty cool as one of the first games which could be hooked up to the TV at home.

[Predseda]

But Amiga has been having continuous base of users since its beginning till today. Do you think there was something similar for pongs? It appeared, spreaded over the world, was replaced by 8bits and then abandoned, imho. Or not?

I think in 20 years CD players will be retro. They are now dissapearing and in 20 years they will be in the position of the LP records today.

[moijk]

Originally Posted by diablothe2nd

like wilshy said, kids these days are born into a disposable ethos. if something electrical breaks, throw it in the bin. if something broke when i was a kid my mum and i tried desperately to fix it. a waste not, want not mentality.

Since i have glued, modified and fixed about half of my kids toys so far, he seem to have got the idea that he want to repair stuff that is broken.

He'll know all about record players, cassette players, 8/16 bit etc growing up for sure. lol.

[Sektor 83]

I have no idea what's going to be 'retro' in 20 years time, and I guess that's partly up to subsequent generations (those that grew up with modern systems) to decide. Personally, I had more of a fun time messing around with an Amiga than I ever have done with a PC, and I still miss having an A500+ whereas I've never missed having, say, a Windows 95-type PC or, on the other end of the scale, a first edition Playstation.

Also, I quite liked the 'safety net' aspect of the Amiga... worst thing that can happen coding-wise is you'll get a guru and it's like "fair enough". I'm much more hesitant to mess around on PC's just in case I somehow manage to knacker them up. Besides, as much as I like using a PC, I just feel they lack a little bit of soul. They seem like transient things; every upgrade makes the previous one totally obsolete. I never EVER got that feeling with the Amiga... every KS version/chipset had its own charm, character and quirk.

[Jonathan Drain]

"I miss the Internet."