Slashdot Mirror
Problems in Computer Conservation
sobachatina writes "The Computer museum at The University of Amsterdam has an interesting page with examples of the problems that they run into maintaining 20+ year old hardware such as rubber rollers from card readers melting or mold growing inside CRT terminals.I hate it when I get mold growing inside my monitor!"
for going solid state all the way.
Suck the air out of the exhibits and you'd probably be able to preserve those exhibits a little bit longer.
And if all else fails, take a picture and put it up when the original machine has fallen to pieces.
I have been pwned because my
I have a number of fairly old systems (up to about 28 years), and so far they are all chugging along quite well. My TRS-80 Model I still works great for instance - drives are functional, etc. Not that I use it much, but I boot it once every few months.
:)
But I'm sure this won't last forever... maybe I should get my valuable data off the thing one of these days
Just a few years ago. Not because It didn't do what I wanted it to. In fact I rather miss it because it was ideally suited to its task, but because various little mechanical bits of it started to get wonky and I couldn't find replacements.
I'll be able to custom build a replacement now with the new VIA stuff, and the replacement will undoubtably be "better" than the Compaq, but it's still just plain annoying to have to take a grand or so out of pocket to replace something that did it's job ( and that I only payed $50 for in the first place) and could have continued to do so ad infinitum had a few $5 parts been available.
And of course its basically working carcass is now sitting in some landfill because none of the local shops even considered it worth taking up space if I gave it to them for free.
And this could still be a continuing issue. One of the surest ways to force DRM "enabled" machines on the majority of the populace is to simply phase out the bits of the machines people already have making them impossible to keep going.
It might take 20 years, but businesses seem to find the patience they otherwise lack when it comes to ways to grind down the consumer to the level they desire.
KFG
... It just wouldn't seem right without the simulation of the capacitor "popping" in an old VT100. I saw this happen and a little mushroom cloud formed over the top of the terminal. I had to walk over and unplug it as the young woman at the key board wouldn't go back near it.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Well, "paper" has changed over the years. old scrolls, manuscripts, and books are on thin animal skin (vellum) and can last 2,000+ years under the right conditions....the wood based stuff we usually call paper oxidizes, turning dark and crumbling in less than 100 years unless special preservation steps are taken. For paper made of cloth rag, you can get 100-200 years (paper until the 19th century was made this way). Some combinations of inkjet/laser toner and rag "paper" can last 140+ years, it's claimed.
I still have the "nanosecond" I received from Grace Hopper dinner she spoke at in Milwaukee. I wonder how many of these are still around?
Probably about a billion.
def: nanosecond: wire approx 11.98 Inch long, if you don't know why already then you wouldn't be interested.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I was de-bugging a radio stations computer system that wasn't playing music (no music == bad) so I had to crawl over the on-air console and go behind the built in furniture. My GOD! HUGE lumps of dust, and wire... running... everywhere and nowhere at the SAME TIME! It turns out the problem was a home-made null-modem cable connecting the scheduling computer with the playing computer (most important systems in the station, responsible for playing all music over the air) was resting under the UPS they had back there. I'm trying to keep things cleaner now. Less wires that dont run anywhere (hell, I think I remember hearing there was 120v Live not connected to anything just laying there) and more vacuming (less dust). Systems turn to SHIT when you don't activly watch over them.
Okay, we WILL be leaving behind mountains of trash that future cultures will probably be mining for raw materials.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I had a PC that stopped working becaues all the tar and shit from smoking too much had made screwed up all the connections.
/.
posting anonymously because my dad knows my user name and reads
CD-Rs use an organic dye which reacts to the recording laser in a CD-R burner, causing it to melt and pit--it then becomes non-translucent and the reading laser is refracted when it attempts to read those portions of the disc.
:P
There are several known cases of bacteria and fungus attacking this organic dye, not including the obvious danger that heat and sunlight pose to it.
"Regular" CDs use a polycarbonate substrate instead which is literally stamped into the CD during an injection moulding process. THIS is a mechanical change, giving the advantage that a stamped CD could very well last 50-200 years, whereas a burned CD-R that is not hermetically sealed will be lucky to last 10-20.
It seems that what we need is an inorganic hybrid of a stamping machine and a CD-R burner, something that can (using a much more powerful laser) physically inscribe the bits into a polycarbonate-like material. The nice thing about a technology like this being adopted, is that the firmware could be modified to allow the same machine to create CDs, DVDs, and whatever else they throw at us within that form-factor. Even better would be the ability to come up with your own (Open Source?) disc data storage format.
Anyone want to play devil's advocate on that idea? Apart from cost, I could see consumables and waste being an issue.
Jason Fisher
Not a bad idea, actually Apples last a while, well mind the Apple Lisa Harddisk that was there. Actually I have some working core memory (that one isnt working, but I have more) at home. My mac classic has never failed since it was new. My PC has failed a few times.
When I was a kid I found my dad's old (Texas Instruments, I think) calculator. It had a one line red VFD display and was almost the size of a brick (it weighed sligtly less). I also found a little book of magnetic strips (about the size of a stick of gum). The calculator had a little slot in the left and right sides. You could load "programs" into the calculator by inserting the strip in one side of the calculator and a little motor with a rubber wheel attached would pull it through and spit out the other side. If you were lucky, it had read the strip right and loaded your program.
Well, after about a dozen of these loads the little rubber wheel attached to the motor fell off, no more contact with the strips. I tried tons of things, tape, pieces of plastic, shaved down washers, nothing worked. I was quite sad when I had to throw it away, it was a fun little toy. I'm sure that now, being older, I could have fixed it. Maybe if I had kept it and fixed it I could still be using it to this day.
These things wear out and break down but I think if you have enough time, money and resources you could probably keep them going forever.. But, is it worth it? For me it would have been... for the sentimental value.
Geoffeg
I worked as a dishwasher in a kitchen once, and we had a massive cockroach problem in the restaurant. After several visits from the exterminator, he finally tracked down the nest--the boom-box just above the deep-frier! hordes of nasty critters swarmed out of there as we all stomped and the exterminator sprayed. I hope I never see anything like that ever again.
Consider this: In my business, people are using machines as old as 30 years and some may be quite a bit older than those. These machines have everything from punch card readers to tape readers to special floppy drives that are impossible to find nowadays. And of course, these parts go bad, and as luck would have it in this industry, replacing one of these pieces of machinery can completely break a business. Especially with the economy doing as badly as it is now, and manufacturing is at such a low that everybody in this industry is suffering. But I digress.
The point I'm trying to make is this: If these things (CRTs with mold, rubber wheels melting, etc) are critical to the operation of a really old computer, then someone needs to manufacture them, just like people still manufacture replacement parts for old cars. This is most likely a better idea than replacing these systems with new ones for the following reason: These old systems are proven. A lot was invested into making them reliable and whatever bugs exist are well known by now. Replacing these systems would introduce problems for a long time to come... problems like software not working properly, which is a problem that management has a very difficult time accepting. Try telling your boss that some buffer wasn't flushed and therefore $50,000 just went down the drain. A rubber wheel melting and being replaced is a lot easier to explain to one's manager because everybody knows what a rubber wheel is. And how much does a rubber wheel cost? Even if it has to be specially manufactured and costs the end user $100.00, that's a hell of a lot cheaper than re-engineering the whole damn computer network. And putting up with stupid management (of which I am a member) giving you shit because three months have passed and the new computer network STILL isn't operational due to some stupid SQL program or perl script that has yet to be written, and we've gone ahead and ordered that rubber wheel anyway.
Negra Modelo. Me llamo Juanito Rodriguez y soy alcoholico.
Electromechanical gear from the 1960s often still works. Working cash registers and jukeboxes from the 1940s and 1950s aren't that rare.
It's getting worse as gates get smaller, too. Transistors used to last for many decades; now a decade is a good run.
A couple of items that I still use:
1. An Acer keyboard, (Model 6512, Circa 1994) I am typing on it right now. This thing is built like a brick and I happened on it when by workplace gave away all the pre-Y2K computers to the employees. Much stronger than an old IBM keyboard and built to last. It just happens to have an ATX plug on it. When I snapped a Ctrl key on a much more modern keyboard playing a game, I picked this thing up off the pile of old equipment because it was the only thing that would work with my modern computer. I still am using it to this day even though it has major grunge problems. It still shows no signs of wear.
2. Packard Bell monitors, These things are tough and again, built to last. 17" 1024x768 and still works great! I finally gave it up only because I was getting fragged because of the low resolution. I plan on using it for my Linux server down the road.
My point is that these items were used when I got them, did yoeman's service while I used (still use) them and will be around for a long, long time.
I don't consider having a "Windows" button a reason to give up my keyboard. Sure, it has a Num-lock light that will not shut off (Due to an incompatability with modern motherboards) but other than that it is very solid.
Far saner to code to a VM that will continue to work on future hardware and keep storage abstracted. My mainframe friend always tells me they still use punch-card readers, only they don't exist physically any more. Kind of of like how tar writes to "tape drives" that don't exist either, we have phased out tape for desktop backs, but the software is the same.
I maintain some really old thermal wax colour printers that have crumbling rubber wheels and it *sucks*: The consumables cost a ton, parts are extortionately priced, they are flakey compared to new printers, they have crummy DPI and they are sloooowwwwwww...... First decent budget I get, they are all going to die. Because I am going to replace one colour postscript printer with another, no-ones even going to notice (except it'll be faster, cheaper and better).
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
'Cause when I code for too long, I start to think about how much I really like history and how the people who write O'Reilly books seem to "get it" in the way that people who grok the fundamental coolness of good historical writing get it.
Example: If you like history or non-fiction even a little and want to understand how the world works read anything by Robert Caro. My favorite book is The Power Broker, but "Means of Ascent" is a good start. He has one of the best analytical minds out there, and you'll walk away with an appreciation of how power works in the 20th century.
Like I said, offtopic as hell, but interesting nonetheless.