However I love looking at pics of old hardware. I love how the sockets and chips look, the PCB wiring and so on. Todays tech boards just don't look as populated or badass as those pics you just posted.

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I agree that there is something about the ceramic and gold of old ICs which screams "QUALITY!". A cheap computer-routed PCD with a few BGAs, or worse - blob chips - is hardly inspiring. I especially love funky VLSIs, like on my DECtalk card here. But my electric bill does mostly prefer the newer electronics.