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What do you think is the best/ugliest looking 80s computer?


bluejay

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12 hours ago, RevEng said:

I'm a sucker for designs where the intent was clearly to be futuristic, so that biases heavily towards the 70s instead of 80s. There was just a sense of optimism and naivety in computing in general, and the designs matched that, without looking much like each other. I think the Atari 400/800 was the tail end of that design movement, along with a few other contemporaries.

I used to be like that when I was a kid. Now I like less obtrusive, less eye-catching, and much less wow in design in general.

 

12 hours ago, RevEng said:

Hardly anyone wants to design boldly anymore, to avoid looking foolish. I think there's something a little sad in that.

Not really. Some weird and outrageous designs simply don't blend with anything in the real world. I'm quite happy enough with Shuttle XPCs and Intel NUCs for example. Square, and fits anywhere, and stackable to a reasonable extent. The modern-day version of the BeigeBox PC. That's not to say I don't appreciate a radical design.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Keatah said:

I used to be like that when I was a kid. Now I like less obtrusive, less eye-catching, and much less wow in design in general.

 

Not really. Some weird and outrageous designs simply don't blend with anything in the real world. I'm quite happy enough with Shuttle XPCs and Intel NUCs for example. Square, and fits anywhere, and stackable to a reasonable extent. The modern-day version of the BeigeBox PC. That's not to say I don't appreciate a radical design.

Ah, you grew up. That's sad too. ;)

 

Weird is too loaded a word, and often used solely because something or someone is different from the pack. I don't think that's where you're coming from, so much as circling around the designs being impractical. (correct me if I'm putting words in your mouth) The practicality argument can be taken to either extreme, and it seems unreasonable to me at either end. But if I were to own arcade cabs or dumb terminals, my 70s examples don't seem particularly impractical, compared to their more boring counterparts.

 

I lament the shrinking of design-space that has continued through the decades, and have brought us to a point where every company needs to put out an apple lookalike, because that's the safe corporate thing to do. There's a place for uniformity and practicality in devices, but I can't say that any of the modern ones are the best looking, as the thread asks about 80s devices. To use a car analogy, enjoying the lines of a hot-rod or muscle car, doesn't mean you can't need or use a sedan.

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Now that I think about it, Nintendo could have combined the cart slot of the NES with the SNES one, so it has no pushing down but it still has the front loading design, and have a mechanical eject button like the SNES so it's easier to pull out when it's stuck in there.

 

Yup yup.  Pretty much exactly what I meant when I said "without the mechanical failure-prone mechanism in the NES".  No pushdown latch. (The contacts wore terribly, and it had poor contact fidelity. That's why there were so many read errors and other issues that caused garbage graphics with the NES.) 

 

The power and reset buttons could stay on the top of the unit, (since you DO need a few inches clearance for ventilation reasons) without consuming 3-4 inches of vertical space for the cart (and without the need to pull the snes out of the entertainment center cubby, just to change the damn cartridge). Mechanical eject button that's basically just a plastic lever on a hinge pin, with the cart slot residing between the controller ports on the front.  

 

But that would be one of those "Functional" designs, and not one of those "Makes me (the designer) feel sexually aroused" designs.

 

The problem with the US SNES is not that it was butt ugly-- it is that it was designed with a "Makes me (the designer) feel sexually aroused" type primary objective.  I find that the most pleasing designs are the synthesis of form WITH function.  US SNES (and as stated, basically all other contemporary consoles of that era) failed in that capacity.  If the product is cumbersome to work with (which a toploading cartridge playing console *IS*, if it has to live in a 1990s entertainment center's limited real-estate, which 90+% did!) then it has failed this design requirement.

 

 

Edited by wierd_w
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One of the best looking 80's computers was (in my humble opinion) the Memotech MTX 512.

 

I used to have one of these in my collection. It has the most beautiful brushed aluminium (not aluminum!) case. Commercially a failure, Z80CPU with 64kb ram, similar in spec to MSX machines. Other than that, honourable mention to the BBC Micro and the later Master variant.

Memotech MTX: Index Page

 

Worst looking, there are few that I really dislike as I love retro hardware in general, but for me, has to be the Mattel Aquarius, I always thought this thing was horrible. 

The toy of tech: The Mattel Aquarius 30 years on • The Register

 

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18 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

One of the best looking 80's computers was (in my humble opinion) the Memotech MTX 512.

 

I used to have one of these in my collection. It has the most beautiful brushed aluminium (not aluminum!) case. Commercially a failure, Z80CPU with 64kb ram, similar in spec to MSX machines. Other than that, honourable mention to the BBC Micro and the later Master variant.

Memotech MTX: Index Page

 

Worst looking, there are few that I really dislike as I love retro hardware in general, but for me, has to be the Mattel Aquarius, I always thought this thing was horrible. 

The toy of tech: The Mattel Aquarius 30 years on • The Register

 

That MTX512 looks a bit bland to me. A bit more color would be beautiful! Although I get than the Aquarius is dreadful to use, I find the design to fit in the "70s weird futuristic style" category and it'd look nice with the correct monitor. Also, ALUMINUM!

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