old school computing

...1981 was also the year that IBM released the PC and, by the mid 80's affordable computers with lots of "user friendly" software were on the market. Ironically the art mainstream, who had never endorsed the work of the systems artists, fell over itself to accommodate the neat little postmodern appropriations that were created using digital darkroom software (and with a singular lack of consideration for the unique and intrinsic capabilities of the computational metamedium). Baudrillard said it was OK and postmodernism, in its guise as romantic self-indulgence, concurred.

(from  http://www.paul-brown.com/WORDS/EMERGENT.HTM)