There are many healthy activities to take up rather than play with deprecated/obscure tech. Not to be judgemental of course, I draw my line at home repairs.
There's a lot of things you can learn from writing demos that is still incredibly valuable. I wouldn't expect 99.9% of developers to know those things, but if I saw it on a resume? That'd totally jump off the charts to me and I'd definitely want to interview that person.
Don't shame expertise just because you choose to spend your time differently.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."