I own a smartphone, but I also really enjoy messing around with old hardware because its fascinating and illuminating to see what has changed and what hasn't. Maybe some present day readers of Don quixote find the same enjoyment?

I think its very funny as in laugh out loud funny, regardless of its age. The situations are plainly ridiculous on the face of them. Its more Marx brothers than Noel Coward funny, the former is timeless while the latter is the kind of curiosity more akin to vintage computing.

> Even though the book is pioneering and inventive, so were early computers that filled rooms; yet, outside of their novelty and significance, they would bore anyone with a smartphone.

I'm not sure you were aware when you wrote that that smartphones are a consumer good which are mindlessly held by people who don't think too much of it, whereas nowadays the only people interested in those computers that filled rooms are those who develop and nurture a deep understanding for the art, understand the technical limitations and challenges, and value them for the technical tour de force their are.

In the past there were people who also valued and devoured penny dreadfuls like crazy. I'm sure penny dreadfuls were the smartphones of their time.

That the public at large is generally less sophisticated/esoteric in its consumption of the depth enjoyed by enthusiasts & experts of any particular various area is exactly my point.

I think for all disillusioned readers it's absolutely crucial to read this alongside the footnotes. But I've also seen people similarly disillusioned by books as recent as Catch-22.