My AMD 286 with a sound blaster absolutely destroyed a C64 in games. Gosh, I played Monkey Island VGA and Wing Commander on it.

Is "generally available" the proper wording when Claude is generally unavailable so often these days?

I'm the trendsetter. I've never stopped using wired headphones and, after being made fun of for years despite much better audio quality, cost, simplicity and reliability, the rich finally decided to imitate me. Never let go of your convictions!

Amen! This is the way. Many beautiful women have approached me finally! It shows that staying sane pays off.

I bought a little rechargeable bluetooth transceiver with a 3.5 mm jack on it - Just like having a 50 foot audio extension cord, plus it adds a mic.

Same. I've been using the same apple earbuds since like 2005(?). I still have the original plastic case for them and use it to store them in my backpack.

I bought a nice pair of sony studio monitors (MDR-7506), uh, 30 years ago now, and they're still my daily driver. I've had to replace the earpads, but that's it, they're still fabulous headphones.

Actually, they're so good, they're still making and selling the exact same model.

I'm with you! After I lost my gen 1 AirPods a couple years ago, I paid $20 for a pair of Apple's corded EarPods and used them until they failed (1) a few months ago. They had a good mic + music controls, sounded fine, and didn't need a dongle.

Now I'm down to my Shure IEMs (via an Apple lighting-to-3.5mm dongle) and a borrowed pair of old Galaxy buds - wanted to give wireless buds a try, since it's been so long. I don't like them.

1: emitting an earsplitting screech as they did so - the cable must have gone.

AirPods Pro 2 went through a washing machine cycle and still works. Having cables it’s a pain, need to pass behind your clothes or outside dangling. Can’t charge phone while using wired headphones

Phones used to have a 3.5mm port for a reason: sturdier, simpler and independent. Having dangling cable is offset by wireless having to be charged charged, for some only in a case with a charger.

They still do too.

> Can’t charge phone while using wired headphones

You can with wireless charging!

Which is slow as ffff

Same, but I made the switch to usb-c headphones as needed for my phone without complaining about it. I still use 3.5mm headphones on desktop.

Not following trends guarantees you'll be the trendsetter every 5-10 years.

I've almost caved and bought bluetooth because most stores stopped stocking wired headphones above crap-grade. But maybe I can just wait this out, if wired really is making a comeback.

Yep, same boat. That's why I had kept my pixel 4a for years until is finally kicked the bucket 2 years ago.

> That's why I had kept my pixel 4a for years until is finally kicked the bucket 2 years ago.

RIP I'm sure it was a noble device. My Pixel 3a is currently my wireless router for very German reasons. I worry this will kill off the still-decent battery life, as has happened with my OG Pixel.

I have since allied myself with what I personally consider the devil of consumer electronics just to stay on this boat.

I recently upgraded my 4a to a 10 two months ago. Besides getting security updates again, it feels like a downgrade in every way that matters to me.

Can't lie flat due to camera bulge. No headphone jack. Fingerprint sensor on the front that screen protectors interfere with. No sim slot. Ai bullshit triggers if i keep my thumb to close to where you touch to switch apps. Ai bullshit also replaces the old power menu, which now requires a combo button press.

Such a let down.

Late to this post but I have to ask. People made fun of you? Really? I have never owned bluetooth headphones but I've never heard a single comment about that. What kind of enviroment are you in? Leave!

I used to run POV-Ray on my pathetic AMD 386 clone. A simple render took 20 hours and yet I did it.

BBSs have been in theory replaced, but in reality they haven't even been approached by modern social media. Small forums full of dedicated users, often local. So many great memories.

I was about to say the same thing. How can people compare Apple to a NIAKUN throwaway laptop? I'm no Mac fanboy - I use Windows, Linux and Mac at home. I find MacOS somewhat annoying, but as a Internet browsing laptop, I'd much rather pay for the Mac Neo than "NIAKUN".

PS: I wrote this on my Macbook Air.

Silicon Valley started with the military... And the military won't ever go away.

Can you name even a single large company that wasn't created by the state? And yes, maybe created means "picked up a tiny company and made it big", I'm treating that as the same (ie. Amazon)

Also the whole internet started as a military project. The big reason, especially when it comes to Silicon Valley's tech is that people just don't want it until they can see what it does.

Well... We're kind of saying the same thing, I just said it from another perspective. I meant to say that the military created it, so the military will stay around to reap the dividends.

From a time when programs had to be first and foremost useful. Products like 1-2-3 succeeded by solving real world problems and people bought computers to work faster or work less. Now contrast that with Liquid Glass or Copilot integration features.

Both Windows and Mac OS are going through a rough patch. I think these mature OSs have most things that users want, and since incremental polishes don't give people promotions, executives go for major changes that almost always degrade the product.

One way I phrased it to a friend was: "if you try to make a radical improvement to a spoon, chances are you'll make it worse".

I think there's plenty to do in both products, but they are not sexy things that drive upgrade conversations.

I use office on Mac and Windows. It works fine on Mac, but not better than Windows. OneNote, for instance, has serious delays and glitches when syncing notebooks changed on other machines or web. I lost work multiple times before stopping using it altogether on the Mac.