No one I know in my generation inherited anything like that. Personally, the peripherals my dad had would be hopelessly out of date now. I am a mechanical keyboard nerd, so maybe if he had a nice one of those… but if he did it probably got thrown out or donated years ago. Of the computer hardware I own, I can’t think of much of it that would be valuable 10-20 years from now. I have mechanical keyboards, but they’re nothing special. Of course that’s just me.
I think there are two big differences: can the tool be maintained/restored when it’s 10-20 years old, and how fast do those kinds of tools evolve? None of my computers will be relevant as anything besides curiosities, nor will my plethora of microcontrollers, because the tools that will be available 10 years from now will be so much more powerful. If my soldering iron was nice enough to care about, that could be valuable 10-20 years from now because it’s dead simple; though maybe not, maybe the art of soldering will get to the point where irons are useless. I also do woodworking as a hobby - if I have kids and they’re into it, my planes and other high-quality hand tools could become heirlooms. On the other hand, none of my power tools are the level of quality that I expect to still be working in 20 years.
I can believe that some people are making websites/blogs/software/etc that their kids might take up. Linux has been around for over 30 years now. But that seems like a small minority - the software world is fickle and the number of projects that last that long is small.
But that seems like a small minority - the software world is fickle and the number of projects that last that long is small.
Indeed, although imagine the projects that do: a granddaughter resurrecting your repo and bringing a feature to completion well after your passing, such as porting it to use modern materials/libraries:
“Resurrecting the Phoenix Clock || INHERITANCE MACHINING”
Where they have to dig through archived web forms and tutorials to find the manual/documentation that you would have used to put the project initially together. I’m sure there’ll be some content creators in the future telling the same stories as the one above, but via a newer medium and with a Computer Science twist.
No one I know in my generation inherited anything like that. Personally, the peripherals my dad had would be hopelessly out of date now. I am a mechanical keyboard nerd, so maybe if he had a nice one of those… but if he did it probably got thrown out or donated years ago. Of the computer hardware I own, I can’t think of much of it that would be valuable 10-20 years from now. I have mechanical keyboards, but they’re nothing special. Of course that’s just me.
I think there are two big differences: can the tool be maintained/restored when it’s 10-20 years old, and how fast do those kinds of tools evolve? None of my computers will be relevant as anything besides curiosities, nor will my plethora of microcontrollers, because the tools that will be available 10 years from now will be so much more powerful. If my soldering iron was nice enough to care about, that could be valuable 10-20 years from now because it’s dead simple; though maybe not, maybe the art of soldering will get to the point where irons are useless. I also do woodworking as a hobby - if I have kids and they’re into it, my planes and other high-quality hand tools could become heirlooms. On the other hand, none of my power tools are the level of quality that I expect to still be working in 20 years.
I can believe that some people are making websites/blogs/software/etc that their kids might take up. Linux has been around for over 30 years now. But that seems like a small minority - the software world is fickle and the number of projects that last that long is small.
Indeed, although imagine the projects that do: a granddaughter resurrecting your repo and bringing a feature to completion well after your passing, such as porting it to use modern materials/libraries:
Where they have to dig through archived web forms and tutorials to find the manual/documentation that you would have used to put the project initially together. I’m sure there’ll be some content creators in the future telling the same stories as the one above, but via a newer medium and with a Computer Science twist.