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Long-Term PC Preservation Project?
failcomm writes "I've been talking with my son's (middle-school) computer lab teacher about a 'time capsule' project. The school has a number of 'retirement age' PCs (5-6 years old — Dells, HPs, a couple of Compaqs), and we've been kicking around the idea of trying to preserve a working system and some media (CDs and/or DVDs), and locking them away to be preserved for some period of time (say 50 years); to be opened by students of the future. The goal would be to have instructions on how to unpack the system, plug it into the wall (we'll assume everyone is still using 110v US outlets), and get the system to boot. Also provide instructions on how to load the media and see it in action; whether it is photos or video or games or even student programs — whatever. So first, is this idea crazy? Second, how would we go about packing/preserving various components? Lastly, any suggestions on how to store it long term? (Remember, this is a school project, so we can't exactly just 'freeze it in carbonite'; practical advice would be appreciated.)"
The problem I see with this is that you'd basically need to include instructions on how to operate every protocol as well as an independent power source to operate it.
The best bet would just be to include a laptop and a few solar chargers to power it. If the future world can't power a laptop with light for some reason... they don't deserve to look back into the past.
Perhaps that mineral oil which is used to keep CRAYs cool might work? Maybe just get a barrel of that, drop all of the components in, and seal it up.
I'm not sure how practical it will be for when it's opened, but it'll suffice for keeping the sucker preserved.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Along with the CD's place everything on a couple of large compact flash cards because it would be a shame to *really* have a definitive idea of how long optical media will last and expire in.
If there's any crack, air will get in and degrade the media. Use magnetic or solid state storage- hard drives or USB sticks.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I do not know the expected lifetime of standard CDs and DVDs, but I have heard several reports of recordable CDs and DVDs getting bit rot after just a couple of years.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Virtualization gives an easier way to accomplish this (with the caveat of needing a platform able to host the virtualized platform).
You can easily snapshot systems, and have an OS image for each x years rather than a complete new platform each time. Doing this today, you could easily produce snapshots from DOS days up until current systems.
VMware would be easier to create all this with. But, open source Xen would probably be the better choice to ensure future availability.
It just won't work. Either the hardware will fail, or the media will be unreadable, or something else will go wrong. Just include replication instructions, and they should be able to use their molecular printer to create a working copy.
"US Power" is not a defined term. Even if you went to the effort of saying "The two leads need to be supplied with a sine-wave alternating current peaking at 115 Volts" you have no way of knowing that in 50 years they'll be using Volts, AC, two leads, or know what a sine-wave is. I like the previous poster's suggestion of a laptop with a solar charger. Of course this makes an assumption that there will be sunlight in the right frequencies and not the bad evil sunshine frequencies. Who knows what 50 years of industrial evolution, weather changes, and clouds will bring. Heck, what if they try and start it up in Seattle and all they have is clouds? Finally, EVEN IF they did start it up, the point of a time capsule is to provide a glimpse of the past, not to ANNOY AND IRRITATE THE FUTURE. That means whatever OS you install on there is a waste. Making someone go through the tedious boot-up sequence (50 years, Moore's Law, remember?) is a waste. In short, a waste. Much better to give them code samples of your hello_world.c so they can laugh about how stuff was hard in the past. Regards E P.S. FTG!
In 50 years battery acid damage and bad caps may stop the systems from even booting. Bit rot may mess up the bios code as well.
It got damaged in a flood. Even if it hadn't it wouldn't matter. We just use this 20 year old time machine invented in 2039 to come back for our retro-gaming fix. It's a clunker compared to the new time machines, but it was cheap. Actually, probably cheaper than your P4 uses... AND it uses less power.
We actually save power by going back in time and using the past's power anyway. The future is AWESOME. Come join us soon!
Making someone go through the tedious boot-up sequence (50 years, Moore's Law, remember?) is a waste
I'm not convinced that boot times have followed Moore's law. It takes my newest computer significantly longer to boot up completely than did my old 286 in the days where everything ran in DOS.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
NO electronics are designed to last 50 years. If you got basically all the moisture out of the storage facility, everything but the storage devices MIGHT last, IF the temperature were stable enough. And at the end, you'd have a hermetically sealed container full of poison because odds are that the nasty crap would have come out of some of the capacitors anyway, and the plastic would have been offgassing all of this time, and your time capsule would probably be declared a superfund site.
Moral of the story: shoot some digital video of some people using the computers, then pack them off to the recyclers. Whether the exercise is worthy is not really at issue; it's not really a feasible idea anyway. The cost of preserving the machines (are you going to have shielding capable of protecting digital magnetic media over that time scale?) coupled with the risk of the systems not working when you try to fire them up anyway makes the whole point moot for most schools (and most anyone else, too.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No consumer electronics are designed to last 50 years. Unless you have been computing on a space probe, recycle the computers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1. The students won't care. They'll be concerned with whatever popular culture dominates in 2059, not with old tech. Except for the nerds.
2. If you do this, preserve other things as well. Preserve a copy of the newspaper from the Obama inauguration. (Provide instructions on how to open and read a paper newspaper.) Preserve whatever popular culture dominates in 2009. Preserve pictures of the school and letters from the students.
3. Think carefully about whether you'd really like to inflict Windows XP and Compaq hardware on a new generation of students.
4. Store it someplace dry. Moisture is your biggest enemy. Basements will flood, roofs will leak. Think mold, think corrosion.
5. Motherboard batteries will die, and may leak. Remove them and all other batteries. Forget laptops.
Purge it with gaseous nitrogen (its not terribly expensive) and keep it in a low humidity, cold place.
The information in flash memory is stored as electric charge which slowly dissipates. Last time I checked, it was recommended to refresh it periodically, or the information could be lost in as little as 10 years.
Keep multiple systems and monitors.
In 50yrs I think you'd have more problem porting the video out than anything else. Remove the batteries too.
Why not store 3 complete systems in 3 entirely different ways. Hoping that one of them will survive intact. Or components from all three will have enough intact to make a complete system. Let's assume that whoever finds it, even in a century will be intelligent enough to turn it on. Unless this ends up being an Old Man in the Cave sort of scenario. Then you've no hope anyway.
My uncle still fires up his Apple LISA every few months to do his accounting on it.
Seconded. Batteries could be replaced but capacitors could not. Too much volatile chemistry involved.
The "method of sequential steps to start a personal computer" (should such a thing exist in 2059) will be far far different than what it is today. I brought Moore's Law into it to give an example of the orders of magnitude of difference that 50 years can bring. 2^7 is 49. That's 7 generations of change as per Moore's law [for CPU usage] in less than 50 years. There will be significant REVOLUTIONARY changes.
Ehud
The biggest hurdles are probably the shelf life of the hard drive and any electrolytic capacitors in the system. The spindle motor lubricant will dry out, as will the electrolyte in the capacitors. I seriously doubt that it will still be bootable 50 years from now. Sadly, I don't think there is a good answer here. VMs or emulators are potentially a partial answer, but you're still counting on a compatible VM player being available decades from now. And I don't think this is really what you had in mind regardless; it seems like you were wanting to preserve the actual hardware.
you insensitive clod!
Instead of 50 years, make it 25 or 20. Then their kids can be in middle school and see the computer their folks used to use.
There are plenty of pc's made in 1984 that can still work fine.
None of those brands has put out a quality product in the last 10 years. Those machines were ready to be retired the day they were purchased and you're lucky they lasted beyond the warranty period.
Next thing you know someone will want to enshrine a [shudder] Gateway machine
Take a picture of one of the computers, a video of it in action, and write down all the machine stats. Note the date it came into use and the year it was retired, and keep short list of technology changes that occurred during the period it was in service (increases in disk capacity, processor speed, processor -technology- even) and just keep a running timeline.
There's little value in the actual hardware, and as others have noted some of it may not even turn on due to changes in things like batteries and capacitors. Preserve a few specimens if you can, but don't rely on them.
Somehow, you get your computer preserved and it makes it to 2059. Everyone is excited, the telepresence news crews are in attendance, and you go to boot it up... only to have it crash due to a Y2038 bug in some code Microsoft borrowed from FreeBSD. Oops.
In my experience, departments can be re-structured, staff get replaced, budgets get changed, buildings get remodelled, torn down, or re-purposed. Frankly, if you expect such a project to survive even 50 years you may have to do a bit of planning first. Figure out who is going to manage the whole thing; a system can't just be put in a closet in a classroom; find a central location (say, a large airtight, waterproof safe in the school library, labelled with a plaque, and get the school board, school paper, etc. informed about the project so that its existence is recorded in various ways. I'm sure that's just about the best you could do with your budget. I'd also not recommend preserving just one system, but probably several complete ones, maybe of varying age. If you got a couple of 286's with PC-DOS, a couple of Pentium II's with Windows 95, a couple of original iMacs with Mac OS 9, etc, that might be much more interesting than just one system, and surely it's better to have some redundancy in case one or more of the machines don't survive for some reason. And certainly include as much physical media with as wide of a variety of software as you can...floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, zip disks, and perhaps best of all would be USB flash drives as these would be more likely to survive than optical or magnetic media, and unlike these, USB mass storage might be possible to read with computers with computers built in 2020 or even later. Miscellaneous tips: I wouldn't bother with any software that requires online activation, active internet connection, etc. I'm sure the internet will be quite different from how it is today, and even software giants like Adobe or Microsoft may be long forgotten in 2060. Make sure the systems POST without their clock batteries; these will surely be dead in 2060. Include as much paper documentation as you can. Manuals, quickstart guides, printed tutorials, anything. The documentation on this stuff might be very well preserved online in 2060. Or it might not.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
For long time storage, I would suggest taking apart the entire system and giving it a good cleaning to remove any dust, Also inspect all electrolytic capacitors for any leakage or damage, you don't want an out-of-box experience to have to include replacing all the capacitors (although it may end up needing it anyway) This will obviously include voiding the warranty on the power supply to clean it out properly (be careful of the capacitors inside as they could hold a deadly charge, even after 15 minutes if the internal resistors don't work correctly) and inspect it. You should remove things like the CMOS battery, usually a button lithium cr2032, which would leak and destroy circuits on the motherboard, or at least go dead, and you should also pack some spare parts and components with it (at least a spare motherboard, ram, cpu, power supply, optical drive, spare fans, expansion cards, etc) , along with the documentation for them, which might not be available then. Pack at least 2 hard drives, pre-loaded with all the software you want them to see, including iso's of the discs that you will include, as you don't know how long the cdrom/dvd media will actually last.. you might want to include a fully bootable flash drive or two with the software and os as well. Include a complete listing of the bios settings for when they do have to put a battery in... if you can, make a written writing with all the electrolytic capacitors values and voltages, as that might come in handy for later. Include as many operating systems as is possible, to give a flavor of what pc's used to be like and what used to run on them, make sure all the licensing information is both in paper and digital form for any piece of commercial software, as they may need it to run the software, even if the companies who made it are long out of business by then. if the pc uses a standard db15 for vga, you should leave a crt and a lcd if possible, and if it uses a dvi connection you should also leave a DVI-DB15 adapter. Make as many video output options as you can available in case things have changed....
Include a nice strong keyboard (like an old IBM Model M) along with a couple of the other keyboards you have (use different models and brands if possible), as the rubber membrane keyboards will likely not age very well. Include a ball and a optical mouse for snickers, and possibly a document on how each works...
Of my years of collecting old pc's, that's what I've always wished was done for me! =)
The best thing to do would be to ensure your entire system was self sufficient to some degree (i.e. display, OS, input devices were fixed). A netbook would be the perfect low cost solution. Just get an eeePc with a 4/8G hard disk, set up with some slideshow to start on boot and store that. To ensure you dont wind up with the problem of bad flash hard disks, either make a few copies on SD cards, or get a ROM based hdd, burned with a system image. That way when people open it up, there wont be issues of how to connect it to a working monitor/keyboard etc. Just plug in battery and press power button.
Legally obligatory sig : My opinions are my own... etc etc
a few extra motherboards, most necessarily
it won't get you to 100 years, but assuming you pack away 4, and 2 die in the first 30 years, it will get you past 50 years at least
and, with hard work, and assuming nonoverlap in what part failed, you could cannibale parts to get at least one still working for a very long time
besides, even if they completely stop making capacitors, past 150 years, and all the caps fail, a capacitor isn't exactly a difficult component to troubleshoot, understand, or even make
at 150 years, there would be enough interest in building a new capacitor, and enough interest form antique historians to invest in the time to understand and trouble shoot the pc to keep the thing running
and at 200 years, it would probably even be worth a pretty penny
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wait 50 years, unpack it and plug it in.... Then wait while it downloads 50 years worth of windows updates as it simultaneously gets infected with 50 years worth of viruses, worms and other nasties!
It's the first post, it can't be redundant. What idiot got mod points to do this? BTW, I'm not the poster, it's just that as a member of the community I find this ridiculous.
might be a good idea.
Slip in a paper share of MSFT in the time capsule with a note : can you imagine that in OUR time, people would pay seventeen BUCKS for that !!?
Make sure you've got good watertight, light-proof packaging. Pack it with plenty of desiccant packs. Maybe some oxygen absorber packs too. A big heat-sealed moisture barrier bag would be a good start, if you can get one that big.
I'd be a little concerned about the electrolytic capacitors in the computer. There's probably not much you can do if they're going to leak - maybe you could fill the whole thing up with something absorbent that could be vacuumed up later, but I wouldn't count on it.
Also make sure you don't leave any CMOS backup battery installed. If it has to be included, bag it separately.
Keep the capsule temperature controlled. Assume it's going to flood at some point - there was a time capsuled opened here not long ago that was almost totally destroyed by water leakage.
Make sure the local library has paper records on where the capsule is, what's in it, and so forth.
Most of the EEPROMs used to store the BIOS code only have a rated data retention lifespan of 10 or 20 years. In 50 years, it would likely not even be able to boot.
But even should your EEPROM remain intact, the other problem is getting that hard drive spindle which has remained stationary for 50 years spinning again.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Isn't it the Y2036 bug?
In any case, dates should be saved as complete entries (year, month, day, hour, minutes, seconds, milliseconds if needed), not "number of milliseconds since date XYZ".
2^7 is 49. That's 7 generations of change as per Moore's law [for CPU usage] in less than 50 years. There will be significant REVOLUTIONARY changes.
2^7 = 128. 7^2 = 49. 50 years is about 2^5.644 (lg(50)), so it's about 5 and a half generations.
no one is going to want to touch that crap in 50 years. I get angry when I have to deal with anything sub pentium4!
After glancing at many of the nay-sayers and upon this posting, I'd like to remind everyone that very few common instruments of man have been created to endure beyond the life of their users, and quite often they are a joy to be discovered, even if the most basic of happenstances occurs to keep them somewhat preserved.
Many solid state electronics last just fine for decades, nestled in their Styrofoam enclosures. I have personally seen a 1981 KayComp power up after being stashed under a desk for 25 years. I have little doubt it could have happily lasted another 25 down there. . . mercury and plastics gassing away.
The important thing is to offer reasonable protection and documentation. Your Media is going to be the first thing to go. . . so try and document how the media would have worked "IF" it works. Use Acid Free Mylar where possible to keep paper and media from reacting as much with the environment. Take reasonable steps to make sure the computers are packed away from light, (UV hasten the decomposition of plastics), dirt and moisture. Make sure they can be accessed without being damaged and create a reasonable storage scheme that is organized, minimal and well documented.
Essentially, do your best. Even if they don't power up in 50 years because they won't accept the wireless transmission of neo-voltage power used in that day and age, they will be marvels to students of that day. And people may figure out new pieces to apply to their lives in the future based on where we were going today. Also, if one "teacher" or child who has yet to be born, wants it bad enough, they'll figure out how to make them work, or have enough data from the specimens you try to preserve to make a model in their modern day.
Afterall, if I could see just pieces of something like Babbage's difference engine, it's a wonderful experience, even if it doesn't have any punch cards to fully work.
good luck
-Scribe of Argos
2^7 is 49? Uh oh.
7^2 is 49.
2^7 is 128.
I was thinking the same thing... my employer has Dells from 2000-2001 and just started a rolling replacement of them this month, mostly so that we could upgrade to Office2007 (because more and more clients are using it and we need to be able to exchange documents).
I agree that the difficulties of preserving technological hardware are going to be more expensive than most are capable of (noble as it may be).
I would do as others have suggested and videotape the process of the hardware in operation. In addition however I would build a virtualized environment using purely open-source projects. That way you are preserving the memory of the physical actions, the real user/software interaction, and the code necessary to keep the project usable in the future.
Consider the case where someone wanted to preserve their commodore64 experience a long time ago. The hardware itself is scarce to find working even now at less than 50 years. The video would preserve the painstaking data entry and big cartridge mentality in the design. With modern virtualization technology, you could preserve any software environment in use today practically. This preserves the ability for future generations to develop and use these antiquated systems in the future for historical discovery. Additionally you would have to preserve a copy of the source code used to operate the virtualization software at the time in which the preservation is made. Giving people data formats that don't exist anymore is useless, but giving them the code needed to resurrect a working example has value. Even today, there are still ways for people to compile and execute programs written decades ago, provided they have the source.
also:
Argon filling the enclosure would help.
If you were using modern stuff for a time capsule, there are mobos with only ceramic caps available now.
Caps and batteries will be bad in 50 years. Electrolytic caps lose the oxide layer in a few years.
Inert gas with desiccant will work, Vacuum packing a hard drive is a bad idea; The heads will vacuum weld to the platters. (both are reeeeally flat...)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
The electrolytic capacitors are going to dry out in 50 years and will cease to function. There's a chance they will damage other components when the power supply is powered up again. I've seen it happen with equipment that is less than 25 years old. I don't think there is any known solution to this problem.
I'm currently restoring a 50 year old stereo receiver (Harmon Kardon TA230) and the electrolytics are almost completely gone. Everything else is in excellent shape; the resistors, coils, tubes, even the lamps test good but the caps are all shot. This receiver has a old style transformer power supply, so I can bring the voltage up slowly using a Variac for testing. Your computers are going to have switching power supplies which will not like having a lower voltages applied to them so that's not an option.
I honestly have my doubts that much from this era will survive 50 years. It's all made as quickly and as cheaply as possible with the expectation that it will be replaced in 3 or 4 years.
I currently have an Apple ][ that no longer can read its boot disks, a PC XT that doesn't always recognize one of its ST-506 drives and a few months ago I went through my Amiga disks and found that most of them were no longer readable. All of these are far less than 50 years old and have been stored carefully and well cared for.
However, my AIM-65 made in 1977 is still able to read data from my ASR 33's paper tape reader, which is 45 years old and still working fine.
Yeah, my wife hates me for keeping all this junk.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
Most likely also the condensators will be dried already, the motherboard will not function properly. There is simply no way you can preserve a modern(ish) computer for 50-100 years in a working condition. Too many parts will fail in 10 years already, because they were simply built to last only for so long time.
The US National Archives for Preservation and Archives Professionals page contains much information, including that which is specific to time capsules.
Northeast Document Conservation Center is another good resource with guidance pertaining to specific types of materials.
NIST's PDF guide Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs contains best-practices for optical media storage/handling.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
I have been to a school that had done the same basic project with one wrinkle: they just forced students to keep using the same computers for 50 years.
that's what the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply and on the motherboard and plug-in cards will do, go boom.
in the case of old tube equipment, there are two schools of thought on this.
the preservationist school says bring the unit up slowly on a Variac to reform those capacitors that are not fully dried out, say, over 12 to 24 hours. then test the caps, and anything failing needs replacement. issues with your plan are no exact replacements, SMT desoldering and resoldering, etc.
the functionalists recap the whole machine first (the frustrated preservationalists gut the old capacitor bodies and put the new stuff in them, then seal up again with the same old wax or pitch) and then power it up for a smoke test. most of the same issues.
this is not looking too positive as I see it. something with as few electrolytics as possible would be the best bet, like a laptop.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
That would make it a serious pain in the ass to do time calculations.
There are quite a few old tube radios around that are more than 50 years old that still work. I've got a Hammarlund HQ-129X built in 1946 that still works with the original capacitors. It's been fired up often enough that the electrolytics haven't de-formed. You might nit-pick that it's not a consumer product, but it was built for the short wave listener and ham radio operator, not for the government or commercial users of the time.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
The students of the future will figure out the rest no matter how the education system will have been rotten.
He's an astroturfer from the future...
It worked for them then, why not now? Deciphering the Egyptian language was because someone took the time to write the same story in hieroglyphic, Demotic. and Greek.
So, do the best that you can do to preserve the pc (clean it and vacuum seal it at a packing plant?), pack as many spare parts as you can (cables, drives, etc), image the drive to other drives (As spares) and seal them, Image the drive to a few DVD's,
Lastly, find a way to just dump the contents of the drive into pure binary code and print it out.
If you're going to store anything for more than one generation, you need to be prepared for the technology to be lost to the ages. Vaccuum tubes aren't even 100 years old, but barely anyone alive can run a tube computer anymore, much less make one.
If you want to store something over ages, then you need to be prepared for the loss of languages. Use as many languages as possible. Remember that without the Rosetta stone, ancient Egyptian heiroglyphs would be lost to us.
Include manuals. Setup. Assembly directions. Transistor theory. Electronic manuals. The chemistry behind vital components. Blueprints on the components. Blueprints on the tools needed to make the components. Comic books detailing what a computer is, how it is built, and how it gets used. You don't know what will or won't be remembered in the future. Parts will rot and decay, what is common knowledge today will become obscure tomorrow. It's important that your device can be rebuilt, and understood. If the secrets of even one critical part is lost, it may be impossible to rebuild the machine. But at least it'd make a good museum piece.
If you do all this, your students will learn heaps of information about computers. There's plenty of topics to cover, even for students uninterested in computers. Of course, the experience may end up being more valuable than the project itself.
If you really want to have the kids 50 years from now be able to experience what computing is like today, maybe the best thing to do would be to just keep the computer and monitor enclosures. Then, keep a copy of the hard drive contents yourself, backing them up and maintaining them yourself, and in 50 years, go back to the school. You could install a display inside the monitor case, use computer innards of the time, and then use an emulator to basically simulate the whole experience.
It's not a perfect solution, and doesn't cover certain things like an authentic input device (mouse, keyboard), etc., but to me it would seem to be more important for them to experience a close simulation than for everything to be completely authentic.
It would mean keeping the files from corrupting over the years, etc., so more work for you, but it would take care of the hardware failure issues.
Unless you store the thing in a vacuum, some things just aren't gonna last 50 years, and if it works at all when they fire it up it won't work very long. In particular, the grease in the drive's sealed bearing is going to oxidize and harden; the same would happen even quicker to the exposed grease in the DVD drive. You might solve the former problem with an SSD, but I doubt any obsolete school PCs are going to have those. You might be able to leave instructions how to disassemble and re-lube the optical drive, but the hard disk... fuggedaboudit.
I couldn't care less about the computers from 10 years ago, let alone any monsters from the dawn of computing.
You may have fond memories of today's technology (probably because you have an irrational attachment after seeing your son grow up with it) - but I have absolutely no expectation that kids in 50 years will care about today's computers.
Assuming your preservation works, this is the reaction that I would expect:
1. Anger at being forced to play with this outdated stuff for a class project.
2. Laughter at how incredibly bad the hardware is, how impossibly dated the software is.
3. How difficult all this crap is going to be to recycle.
If you want to preserve a computer - do it for yourself. Not for some unborn future kids that are, in all likelihood, not going to even have a passing interest in the technology that's been enjoyed by your present-day kid.
Remove any Batteries from the system. This means the CMOS battery. The hard drives will most likely stick after that much time so starting them again may be a little difficult. An OS CD (not cdr) to reinstall the OS would have the best chance of success. Put several hard drives in with the same OS copy so the odds of one working are better, same goes for OS CDs.
For me it is a great idea, but I can imagine the non-geeky person saying "what's great about all this old @$@#$".....
It's like trying to show an ASCII only BBS from 18 years ago to your average younger colleague, and you just see their expressionless face wondering how much you had to care about a screen refresh on a menu to avoid high bandwidth usage even on a high tech 9600bps modem.
> So first, is this idea crazy?
Yes. Do it.
> Second, how would we go about packing/preserving various components?
Pack it all in cosmoline.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Print out a copy of all the slashdot suggestions and include it. In 50 years they might have an idea of who was *Insightful* or *Full of it*.
As others have already pointed out, there are many problems inherent with trying to preserve electronics in a working condition for such a long period of time. All of the components (down to the smallest level) would have to have been designed and manufactured for long-term stability, as would the data storage media holding the BIOS, operating system, apps, and user data. If this prerequisite is not met, it'd simply be a crap shoot as to whether any of it would work after 50 years sitting idle, no matter how you chose to store it. Doubly so, since the systems in question are hardly in fresh-from-the-factory pristine condition to begin with.
Besides, I fear that the methods of preparation and storage that would be needed to give the system a real chance of booting up, would be beyond the means of a small school project like this. You'd have to back up not only the OS and data disks, but the BIOS EEPROM and *every* other ROM or ROMlike chip in the system, including those on video/soundcards, hard/floppy/CD/DVD drive circuit boards, the display controllers in the the monitor, etc. ... and back it up multiple times to media that has a chance of surviving for decades (I'm talking factory-stamped CD/DVD-ROMS, not user-writable discs).
Then you'd have to make sure those media are stored in archivial fashion: properly packaged and stored under carefully-controlled conditions of temperature and humidity in a dust-free, pollutant-free environment, perhaps even going so far as to seal them in an inert gas. And you'd have to do the same to the computer hardware, preferably NOT in the same physical location or container, as the electronics could degrade and affect the data storage media.
It would be far easier to merely preserve the hardware and storage media as inert objects for museum display, with no expectations of keeping them in working order. And even then, you'd have to be prepared to deal with toxic by-products leaking out of the electronics over time.
Either way, this would be a project better suited for a major university or privately-funded museum than for a small school. If you really want to press forward with it, I'd suggest contacting one of the larger museum institutions for suggestions and/ or assistance.
Do not forget to include the power source specifications.
While I don't see it as terribly likely for standard wall outlets to change in 50 years, it is possible that a new technology will emerge that prompts the standard to change. It could be a different frequency, different voltage, different physical pin arrangement... All must be specified so that adapters can be constructed in the event of a standard change.
I think "feasible" is the word you're looking for. After all, you could get 200 CDs pressed, then throw 199 of them away, no? It will surely be the most *expensive* CD you can get (both in terms of money and waste), but it can be done.
If you're serious, give the folks at the Computer History Museum a ring and see if they have any advice. But, be prepared for disappointment. There are many 40-50 year old pieces in their collection that don't work anymore, and it's kinda hard to get parts with how quickly tech changes.
There is no way you will be able to just toss a computer in a sealed capsule for half a century and expect it to work when unsealed and powered. Modern components simply are not engineered to this level of reliability, and for good reason - they're going to be obsolete in 5 years, so it makes no economic sense. You'll have to do at a lot of detail work to try and assure that the machine will even start:
You will have to replace every single electrolytic capacitor (in everything - mainboard, PSU, every drive, monitor, mouse, keyboard and speaker amp) with solid-state versions. Electrolytics dry out and it's very unlikely that anyone other than a computer historian would think of this before powering the computer up. Altair 8800s and Imsai 8080s from the late 1970s are now to the point that their power supplies and electrolytics must be replaced for them to work reliably - don't expect your machine to fare any better.
It's also a safe assumption that the lubrication in any rotating media drive will be gone by 2060 - not sure how to deal with that other than providing lube in a hermetically sealed package along with instructions to disassemble the CD drive and apply it.
How are you going to have your data last? Tapes and hard drives will demagnetize by 2060. Flash may have a prayer; Your best bet is to get some extremely long-lasting batteries and interface a microcontroller with a plugged-in thumb drive. Store the data along with error-correction codes on the drive. Have the system wake up every ten or twenty years and "scrub" the drive, reading every block and writing it back. Do the same with the system's bios EEPROM - the system will be useless if that gets killed by a cosmic ray. You should also pay to have data CDs gold-mastered - redundancy is the only way to go here.
The display is another problem. The only technology I'd really trust to just work without needing any repair is an LED display; LEDs can run continuously for decades. After the LEDs, a CRT is probably the best bet (despite a decent one having hundreds of precision electrolytics that'll need replacing) - After all, we've got examples of working CRTs from the 50s and 60s. Newer technologies haven't been around long enough to prove themselves yet.
Get a corrosion resistant, hermetically sealed package for the whole kit and kaboodle and flood it with a dense inert gas like SF6 to keep anything from growing. Thoroughly sterilize every square millimeter with a hard UV light just to be safe. Put the HDD in its own sealed bag full of nitrogen if you include one.
For power, your best bet is probably a primary battery (Mg-Cu) with seperately-stored electrolyte feeding an inverter - The shelf-life is "forever until mixed," at which point the machine will probably have a few hours of power depending on how much you include.
Assume that the people who recover the device will still speak your local language and have libraries where they can look up terms such as volt/byte/etc. If they can't, I doubt there will be enough of civilization left to care about some artifact from before The Fall. I think that it will take far more time and money than you're prepared to casually expend if you want to entomb a computer and have any reasonable probability of it turning on and actually working after 5 decades alone, rather than just popping a PSU capacitor or being a dead relic.
The items should indeed be sealed, air-tight, in a dry container of some kind, on a cold clear day (low water content in the air), preferably along with a couple of pounds of Dri-Z-Air or some such moisture absorbing compound. (I am not kidding.) If you cannot seal the container on a cold day then you might be able to find a walk-in freezer that is big enough for you to put it all together there. Let the objects cool off and wipe off any surface moisture before putting them in their sealed container(s).
But there are three other great enemies of longevity that you should also attend to: air, temperature, and light.
Not only should the storage space be dry, it should be kept consistently cool (below 50 F if possible), and in the DARK.
Air is largely a problem because of the moisture, but it can cause other problems as well. The container should be air-tight.
Even then, consider that the standard shelf life of a CD is supposed to be 10 years. You may be able to extend this is you keep them cool, dry, and dark, but I would take care.
turned up at a client and they were all of a fluster. Everything infected, no idea what it was going to do next as it rampaged about the domain. They were terrified because: "we don't know what our computers are doing" which is the normal state when using proprietary software, they must be more used to it than I am. As a consultant the best thing for me to do was leave. I wouldn't attempt to do any work on someone elses infected computer, I don't want to end up owning the problem, and they didn't want to spend a day listening to me talking about how they should switch to a grown up operating system.
Not all caps are made the same...Is there capacitor that is top class and could function even after 50 years? A few custom caps would cost some $$ but replacing the motherboard ones would help longevity.
Back in '92 the school received a bunch of 386 machines. The school principal (or "director"), computer illiterate and scared of such dubious machines, decided that allowing the students to use them will have only one outcome: the students will damage the machines. Therefore, to prevent such damage, he locked them away in a warehouse, and I am sure that they are still there, in the same warehouse, in the same state as in '92. Not a trace of damage, of course.
Multiple sources. Include vacuum packed optical media, magnetic media, flash media and laminated paper printouts of the code.
In 50 years they should still have the ability to take digital photographs of the laminated sheets and with a little luck, OCR will be much better. You're going to have to make danmed sure that you can keep moisture out of the package. You should find the thickest, heaviest mylar you can and use that to vacuum pack the components. And with each of the components wrapped in air tight media, wrap them again. After that, wrap them again. Light, oxygen and moisture are your enemies. You must keep them out.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I have a Western Electric Model 500 telephone, manufactured per the bottom plate May of 1963, but including older parts such as the black metal fingerwheel. I think the ringer needs to be adjusted for the voltage on my line, but its line cord has already been replaced with a modular one and it works great -- on cable company phone service no less. So it's working at upwards of 45 years, combination in-service and a few years in the attic. Obviously this is a simpler device than a computer, but electronics can hold up if they are built right.
Hi. I'm writing this on a computer that have had the capacitors replaced.
"there's also this light bulb that has burned for over a century"
So what percentage of 100 year old lightbulbs still work then? How many lightbulbs from 100 years ago are still functioning? I am guessing a very, very small percentage chance of success. i.e. be optimistic, but realistic...
Al Capone's Vault.
Isn't that equivalent to "number of milliseconds since 0001-01-01"?
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
bullshit - or someone just screwed you but hard
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
All you need to do is find a closet somewhere in the school. Pile the old computers in there (it's best to just fill the closet right to the ceiling, that way there's little incentive for anyone to ever clean it out), and lock the door. If you can lock it with a padlock, and then throw the keys away, even better. In fifty or even a hundred years, your 'time capsule' will still be intact. Given the amount of money schools are given for renovations, nobody will be tearing the closet out for a good while yet; and given the lack of money for IT support, anyone who did happen to stumble across it would merely shrug and shut it back up again.
I work a public school IT department, and we find little stashes of 30-year old computer gear often enough that it's not a surprise anymore- and that's in a tiny district with only four schools!
If your closet has an electrical outlet, even better. You can build a circuit to keep the BIOS battery charging the whole time and just leave it plugged in.
For redundancy, hide a few machines in some of these locations as well:
Above the ceiling tiles in the staff lounge
On top of the furnace/boiler in the basement
Beneath the bleachers in the gymnasium
Above the ceiling of the girls' change room (on second thought, bad idea. Some nerd will find them for sure, there)
On a shelf in the custodian's closet
Between two of your Dell blade servers in the NOC
In the closet with the overhead projectors and VCRs and filmstrip players- nobody ever goes in there anymore!
"Apparatus dignosco occultus, satis non supernus."
Since XP needs activation servers, our project is doomed to fail. DRM has large chunks of our current culture to be a dark age. I assume that this being a school, you are not going to illegally crack the DRM.
The computer will be ruined by the decomposing body soup of the nerd killed and dumped into the capsule by a lesser nerd.
Dont any of you people watch "Bones" on FOX?
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Or time travel - let me tell you. Just last week, I tried to travel to the year 2077, but the control computer had the 2038 bug and I ended up back in my own garage where I started. Man-o-man was that embarrassing!
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
What 1959 technology would you like to see run? A turntable? A TV? How about a Radio? We still have all those things, but now, they are cheaper (adjusted for inflation) and better.
So much of the experience of a current "computer" has nothing to do with the hardware, it's the content. So the virtualization ideas, etc have some merit.
50 years from now, how "cool" is old hardware going to be? Not very I expect. They will have better cheaper computers.
IMHO, you'd be better off including lots of pictures and printed material that will be usable, toss in some hw too, even if it won't work. In the end, I suspect an old yearbook will be more interesting than a computer.
Meh, that's just my 2 cents worth.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Just gmail a video of it running/booting/etc to yourself, then simply bury a 8.5x11 piece of paper with our username/pass for them to download in 50 years! By then googleNet will rule the world and your mailbox will be 75PBs in size!
You will need to replace the electrolythe capacirots. They only have a shelf life of about 10 years. One possible way around that is to get an all-solid (ceramics) capacirot board. You will not get a PSU of that type though. You can get a 24V (or the like) DC input PSU with ceramic capacitors though and then will only need a 24V PSU to get it working.
On the data-carrier side, the FLASH BIOS may be gone on the mainboard, typical CD/DVDs do not survive nearly as long and drives will also suffer from capacitor and lubrication agent decay.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The clock battery will be the first thing to die. The "coin shaped" battery will last no more than 3 years in a dormant machine.
Most older PC's, the settings for the hard disk geometry are stored in CMOS powered by the clock battery. When the battery goes, your system is no longer bootable, and it's often very difficult to figure out what the correct settings are years later.
At a minimum, write down all the BIOS configuration information you can find (in the BIOS config screens that you can get into if you press a key on system boot) and then remove the clock battery from the motherboard. This will prevent battery corrosion from damaging the motherboard and may allow the battery to last longer. Include a brand new spare battery in the archive for good measure - preferably in its original packaging.
The problem with burying a time capsule is that it works for dead items, but does not work well for something which is supposed to work when you resurrect it.
Why not encrypt your message, spread it around on the surface, freely, and just bury the key in your capsule? For more fun, encrypt it with just enough encryption so that the time it takes to crack it is equal to the time capsule length.
Hasan
This actually brings up perhaps the biggest problem with the project.Where will they find a battery for the bios?
While some bios will boot (to default settings) without a bios battery installed most will simply fail post, hard.
Will a battery, even still in the original packaging, even hold a charge for 50 years? If you look back, battery technology has advanced quite a bit in the last 50 years and there is every indication that this will continue for the next 50 years so getting a hold of the exact battery (or even a similar one) that the bios needs may be impossible.
Minne-snow-da: Winter is comming...
The idea of pissing off a planet with much higher technology then ours really scares me.
You may have to provide instructions for constructing replacement capacitors and CMOS battery as well as how to detect and remove the tin migration needles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy) for an overview) that are likely to form, fungus, possibly conductive dust layer, and the like. The insulation may well be faulty by then, too.
Also, on archival paper, provide the code for the bios so that it can be replaced.
Good luck trying to get Windows XP to "activate" in 50 years from now.
I don't think IPV4 will still work 50 years from now anyway and domain names will change. Either Microsoft will be out of business or no longer will accept Windows XP activations.
I think whatever exists of the Internet in 50 years will ban old technology from connecting in order to promote the latest technology. It would sort of like getting a Univac to connect to the Internet today and use Firefox to browse web sites. Not really possible and a platform 50+ years old would no longer be supported.
I am quite sure that HTML will be replaced with something else in 50 years, and old web browsers couldn't connect to it anymore than Netscape 1.0 could do dynamic HTML 4.0 and AJAX and Shockwave Flash web sites.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
You could just takes pictures of everything using a 35mm BW FILM camera and have the prints developed with silver-halide and put the prints in the time capsule. We know that prints of this type will last for 100's years...Sometimes our technology isn't all that it's cracked up to be...
---OR---
To get increase the odds of getting to 20 years:
Motherboard:
- Replace all electrolytic caps (they'll dry out) with tantalum caps (expensive)
- If the BIOS is flash or eprom (unlikely - haven't been used in 10 years), burn a PROM (Programmable ROM) and substitute. The PROM will last longer.
LCD display:
- same prep as motherboard
Hard Drive:
- Problematic. The bearings in the motor will probably seize after a long period of inactivity. Maybe a new SSD (but flash will have its problems as well)? - Even having a bootable CD/DVD custom-pressed will still need a CD/DVD reader (has a motor with bearings). Maybe increase your odds by putting in dual drives? - One of them may survive. - Maybe set up a USB thumb drive and try to boot from that. (make sure MB can boot USB drive)
Keyboard:
- Anything mechanical will be a problem. I would find a membrane-keyboard (the type that you can buy that is waterproof). This might have the best chance of avoiding corrosion
Entire Computer:
- Seal in moisture resistant plastic. Also put in at least 2 pounds of desiccant. Fill with nitrogen to prevent corrosion on metal-metal contacts.
- Replace all wiring with silicone-based wiring. (Wiring will dry out, crack and short when power is re-applied after 20 years)
- What OS are you going to use? CP/M was used 20 years ago, how many people know how to boot a CP/M system? The current generation doesn't even know about DOS...Do really think that anyone will be using windows in 20-50 years? Sorry Bill, ain't gonna happen... (we'll probably be using some kind of molecular computer that looks like a glass filled with water and is programmed for a specific task using nano-programming bots)
- If you aren't going to bury it, enclose it in metal container that is sealed and grounded to prevent the random cosmic ray from corrupting programmable memory or magnetic bits on the hard disk. Also helps in the event of solar storms/flares
- Make sure you have all of the cables you need. It's unlikely someone will find any of the same type 20 years from now. How many people still have a Centronics parallel port cable?
- I would probably disconnect all internal cables and connections to reduce metal-metal corrosion and also allow the nitrogen to infiltrate everything. This includes unplugging DRAM and CPU. Make sure to include instructions on how to hook everything back up.
- Power:
- Enclose the following:
- 55W 18V Solar panel
- 12vdc-120vac pure sinewave inverter
- 12v lead acid battery that is dry and never been charged (plates are not wet) This will keep for 10+ years
- battery acid (enough for charing battery)
- instructions for preparing, charging battery using solar panel and how to hook up solar panel to charge.
So, if you don't do the above and just throw everything in a bag, you might get 5-10 years before things deteriorate to the point that they fail. Another alternative might be to use a laptop where at least everything is self-contained. Still need a way to power it though. The electric-grid (in its current form) has been around for about 100 years. It will probably make it for at least 30-50 years, so power would be the least of my concerns.
And my last question would be, would anyone be alive (or care) about a computer that's 20 years old.
Do you currently care about an IBM PC -8086 with 256K of memory, a 360k 5.25 floppy, a 5MB hard drive with a hercules monochrome monitor?
That was 20 years ago...
After reading some comments and the article. (from what I know) For the media, I would recommend commercial disk as dyes on disc don't last for long (or at least don't seem to last as long as pressed). Having more than one copy would be helpful probably, in case some don't work ,and trying to make sure they don't oxidize is probably you're #1 priority after disc quality.
As for the computer, some have spoken about battery problems and even capacitors and maybe even data not being on the BIOS chips and the HDD not possible spinning.
Battery problem - simply removing the battery and putting it in another container, but this doesn't help keep the data in the various chips.
Capacitor's are probably the tricky part as they do contain a "voltage" and you can't discharge them really so...no idea.
HDD - you could try SSD but I don't think they can keep data there that long? and what's the "half-life" on data on a traditional drive? assuming it's shielded from electromagnet interferences, will it stay there "forever" ?
If I was going to put such a feet, I wouldn't go with a "completed" system, as it's probably too risky. Maybe you would want to provide multiply system's and prepare each part of the system, to be stored separately from each other. And provide instructions on how to put it back together (in case some parts don't work). If you put enough parts in it, you should be able to get a complete system out of it.
Personal opinion, you should just throw some CRT's in the capsule, and maybe even an LCD and Plasma, the CRT should last long enough (assuming it doesn't suffer from the same problems as a computer would) and would probably be more "amazing" to people in the future. Of course I'm assuming the CRT will be 100% dead by then, and won't be like VHS (or even LD's) where they just won't completely die.
God Of War ^^
It would be better not to put them all in one place.
If you are going to get 200 CDs pressed, you'd do well to keep a few dozen of them in your capsule, and distribute the rest.
If it's a project at a school, insert a copy of the CD in the back of every copy of that year's yearbook. Make sure to send several copies of the yearbook with the CD insert to all the local libraries in the area. Chances are that will ensure that at least one of them will survive for 50 years. At least in my area, the libraries have yearbooks from all the local schools going back to the 40s, which I presume is when they started producing them. (They have class photos going back a lot further than that, too.)
In general, if you can make information interesting (or at least package it with something interesting), you can practically let other people do all the archival work for you.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Why is it bullshit? I did the same thing to my computer, I can do that kind of stuff. It's a PIII-866 running W2K. The computer started failing more and more often and one day stopped reacting at all; nothing happened on power up. Saw all the big caps had bulging tops. Got the mobo out, heated up the desoldering gun, removed the caps and replaced them with caps from a more recent but otherwise dead AMD mobo. Works fine since then. I'll probably squeeze a few more years out of this machine.
Mostly random stuff.
Second point, everyone rapping on about how the capacitors won't last are mostly ignorant people repeating stuff they've heard. The capacitors that won't last are the cheapo junk capacitors made in China. Quality caps last just fine. I have a "Junk box" full of quality American and Japanese made caps dating from the 1960's and 1970's that I STILL use as repair parts when I need a capacitor. Never have had a bad one, and I'm talking boxes of hundreds of them.
Of course, most of the computers you are talking about are probably filled with crap Chinese capacitors. On the other hand, if they're already a decade old, maybe not. The China junk usually dies in a couple of years. I've repaired many a two year old computer whose capacitors have failed.
I have quality Collins radios from the 1940's that still have all original caps (and tubes) and still work fine. On the other hand, I have a very expensive 7.1 channel surround sound amp system, about 5 years old, and it's power supply caps went out recently. I pulled out a couple caps from my junk box, caps old enough to vote, wired em in, and the Amp lives on.
Media, yeah, that's another story. Most will be unreadable in 50 years. Quality optical might have a chance. Paper tape will last. Yeah, that's the ticket. Print the MSDOS install disks to paper tape! That'll work ;) Windows will need a LOT of tape.
Stony
The irony of the timing of this post is incredible! Just a couple of hours ago, I was copying some family pictures from CD-Rs burned about 10 years ago, and only appx. 60% of the pictures could be copied over! The other 40% had CRC errors :-/
By the way, these CD-Rs were stored in a dark area (never any sunlight near them, in a So. Cal. climate (rarely humid), and I was expecting these to last a bit longer in this environment. I thought these CD-Rs had a decent chance of lasting a while. Guess I was wrong.
I learned the hard way I have to constantly store these files in parallel in multiple mediums (magnetic, optical) and I guess I will have to start a process of periodically burning new discs, whether I need to or not.
Some Integrated Circuits have a shelf life.
They can actually go bad just sitting in an ESD tube
on a shelf.
So keep that in mind.
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:bML8_AJcIkUJ:focus.ti.com/lit/an/szza046/szza046.pdf+IC+shelf+life&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
vacuum could kill the hard disk. typical hard disks especially older ones require a certain amount of air pressure for the head to glide over and not touch the platter. I read something to this effect that explained why most laptop hds would fail at high altitudes such as at extremely high mountains.
http://www.object404.com
Don't forget to delete the pr0n!
Keep it actually plugged in and running for 50 years. Configure the BIOS to wake on LAN, so it can recover from blackouts. Better yet, if it has a wireless network card. You could wall it away, and even remotely ping it every now and then to see if it is still alive.
I wonder if you could replace the BIOS battery (which obviously won't lasts 50 years) with a nuclear pacemaker. Contact Medtronic to see if they could donate one for this cause. Either that, or remove the battery and provide enough instructions to boot the machine with default (dead battery) BIOS settings.
I think in 50 years there will still be enough experts in antique computers (The original Mac just turned 25 for perspective) to get the machine up and running, as long as nothing has corroded beyond repair. New motherboards and high end power supplies are being made with polymer capacitors that last a lot longer.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2113
My rights don't need management.
Don't worry about it in the future they'll have Brawndo and it's got what computers crave. Your computer will work fine.
In reality, the two number one killers of computers in storage are (1) rats and (2) temperature changes causing moisture condensation / rust. Computers more often than not are stored in less than ideal conditions "just put somewhere".
Rats love to chew up PC ribbon cables to keep their teeth from growing long. You will open PCs you think are sealed to find ribbon cables shredded. They can get through open drive bays and open slot slits in the back with no problem whatsoever... go in and chew up the cables, maybe drop off a few acorns, and leave.
Moisture is another huge problem, caused by extreme cold. Moisture will form on steel cases like dew. I've checked on PCs in my collection in storage before only to find them soaking wet.
Any amount of rust on a case, will grow.
Your boot floppies will be the first to go.
that I booted a month ago after 25 years of being inside a dusty closet. It booted DOS from a 5 1/4" 3M diskette, and I was able to play "Zaxxon" and "Pirates!" from other disks lying around. Many didn't work, but there where enough survivors to show my son how was computing back in the early 80's.
Preserving modern electronics shouldn't be THAT hard.
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
It's pointless to store a computer. Just use Windows! They'll NEVER break binary compatibility!
Of course, you still have to find the proper media to store your data in. May I suggest a solid-state drive? Get it with a USB interface; USB is still the wave of the future.
The relativity fridge has a large mass inside so that time runs much slower - at a ratio of 1 year to one second. So take food out as you put it in - preserves freshness + temperature (cold or hot).
From the other posts I think you'll agree that such a fridge is your only option - electronics are not built to last that long! And there will likely not be any spare parts.
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Store copies of the Duke Nukem series on various forms of media and store it with it. Someone will throw it up on the then-ebay and a geek will buy it, the geek being compelled to play the prequels to Duke Nukem Forever the way they were meant to be played.
www.isoHunt.com
CDs also only tend to last for a couple of months.
There, fixed that for you.
The pressed CDs, if using high quality materials and at least good storage might last that long. Home-made CD-R and DVD+-R will last a small handful of years, at best. The life span of the organic chemicals in the dyes used in CD-R, DVD+-R is close to five years. The clock starts ticking from the date of manufacture. It ticks faster while in sub-optimal storage and while in use. Bad storage means, too hot, too cold, temperature variations, too moist, too dry, humidity variations, and of course polluted air.
Anyway, it's mostly stupid to worry about the physical media, when it is the filesystem format that determines the ability migrate to new media or even new types of media. The file formats, however, have the ultimate, final say in whether or not the data is accessible.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Maybe the best way would be to keep using the machine? Not every day, but boot it up once a year for the class history project. Provide a list of things that need to be done each year as preventative maintenance: copy from one set of memory sticks to another, or whatever. And what to do when a read fails - you have redundant copies, but you need to make sure to regain that redundancy once the first failure occurs. And you need instructions to take out the motherboard battery afterwards and to replace it every 5th year. Provide a logbook so people can tick off these things. This way you not only preserve the hardware, but preserve a little of the knowledge about the machine itself and how to use it.
I doubt you can get disks or CDs to last 50 years, but your best bet might well be to ensure they're spun up occasionally. And for disks, the surface will need to be read and re-written.
Any hardware failures will be easier to repair the earlier they are detected. If something fails 15 years from now, you have some hope of finding a spare on Ebay or whatever the equivalent is then. If you only detect it in 50 years, the task is much harder.
I might also think about replacing the stock power supply with something simpler and containing no electrolytic capacitors (no soft-power settings - just on/off 5V and 12V). With some built-in self-test before you throw the switch to send power to the PC itself. Finding a simple replacement power supply 50 years from now should be simple if you've got the specs written down. Finding a replacement motherboard because you just sent overvoltage to it would be a lot harder.
In 50 years the world may not exist.
Did you ever think about that?
The naysayers must be people who frequently discard and replace electronics. There are some very real long term storage risks, but many things can remain working for a long time. I collect vintage computers like Commodore 64 and Amiga and TI-99 systems. While the oldest "computer" I have is an Atari 2600 from the mid 1970s (it's the original model) if a computer-like machine can stay working for 20-30 years, 50 must be possible. I know of people with computers over 30 years old (Apple, PET, Altair, etc) that are still completely functional, though to be fair they are still maintained and used rather than sitting in a locked closet. Issues likely to come up are mechanical (hard drive damage) and fluid leaks (capacitors and batteries). Not much you can do about capacitors short of having the machine powered up for a few minutes every few months, but you can remove the motherboard battery and put it in a plastic bag along with details on the type of battery should it need replacing. For what its worth I've never actually seen a leaking capacitor on even old machines that have sat in closets for years. It is POSSIBLE though. I think if you store it in a cool, dry, dark place free of physical shock (drops that could damage the hard drive heads) and include spare parts for a few things like motherboard battery and perhaps a clone of the installed hard drive, you've got a reasonable chance of it at least partially working still in 50 years. If the machines are being junked anyway, what do you have to lose? If you can store 2 or 3 computers, even better. If you can arrange for someone to plug in and power on the machines for 5 minutes at least 2 or 3 times per year that should go a long way to reducing the risk of capacitor leakage. I say go for it!
Assume you have figured out how to package your computer time capsule. Where will you store it for 50 years?
If it is stored in a school system attic, basement, storage area, etc., you can count on it that some administrator or custodian will decide to throw it out to make space for something else they want to store.
A city or university library that is not part of the school system may be more likely to keep your package for 50 years. Maybe not.
The same argument applies to every kind of site I have been able to think of. At the least, plant multiple capsules in different places.
I am not trying to throw cold water on the time capsule idea. It would be a good project to build a capsule or capsules and store them, even none of them survive.
In vacuum, many materials will sublimate.
Also keeping your container vacuum tight for 50 years will be a big challenge.
Innert gas like nitrogen is relatively cheap and as the difference in pressure between the inside and outside of the vesel will be minimised, you have a better chance to maintain the atmosphere inside.
The biggest challenge will be to remove all traces of humidity which will be the killer fof any equipment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power
It comes in a 5 wires cables. 3 phases, a neutral and the ground. Out of wich you can get 3 different, Slightly dephased normal 230V.
I know that because I was almost electrocuted trying to do just that for a Xmas party at University in a Parking facility. The beer pumps needed normal outlet whil the parking had triple phase one.
Someone connected the cable to the power while I was I finishing at my end. No harm done, just a little shock.
I worked with punched cards as a student in the 60's, and at my first job in the 70's. It was kind of neat. Editing source code consisted of shuffling cards. To 'insert' or 'delete' a character, you had to press hard on the card to prevent it from dup'ing in synch with the other card. We invented the 240-column card (three four-bit digits per column).
Compiling a 4,000-line assembler program took 40 minutes. When cards jammed and tore, you had to re-key them manually.
In the late 80's, the Boston Computer Museum had an excellent working display of punched card equipment. They closed, but their exhibits were shipped to a computer museum in Mountain View, CA. http://www.computerhistory.org/
They sell a DVD of a movie that shows the early days of computing, including scientists manually copying results displayed on a primitive CRT: "See how they ran". ahref=http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/VT%20298rel=url2html-8937http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/VT%20298>, which I seem to recall runs longer than 17 min.
PS: I never dropped, nor saw dropped, a tray of cards. Besides, they were sequence-numbered and could be re-sorted.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
I presume they are talking about electrolytic capacitors, because they're the ones which tend to go bad over time. Multi-layer is a technology used in ceramic capacitors, which tend to last longer and don't need replacing. Even if they do need replacing, they are (obviously) designed to take the heat of soldering. All the MLCCs I've hand-soldered have survived, even the ones I did with an iron rather than hot air.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
The real question here is whether or not I'll be able to access my data posthumously.
A few years ago I got an Tek 453A, the first all solid-state model of o'scope which had apparently been used in a coal or oil-fired power plant for over 30 years. After cleaning off all the soot inside and out, it was a beauty, with sinuous gold traces on the PCB, little sockets for the transistors (they didn't quite trust them at that point), hand-painted precision resistors... a work of art. See http://www.diyguitarist.com/TestEquipment/Tektronix453.htm [not my site] for pictures of the insides.
I used it for teaching electronics to a small group of 8-12 year-olds - when I opened the case an aroma of ozone and machine oil wafted out, and I'm sure that they'll remember that experience if they get a whiff of that electrical scent even when they're 90.
Unfortunately, when using the scope on the deck on a misty day with the kids, it started making zapping sounds and died. I still haven't gotten around to figuring out whether it was the caps or something else in the HV supply, but it's still the finest thing I own.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
"NO electronics are designed to last 50 years."
I have a number of dial phones from the 50s and before. They still work and I can still use them. They work and sound much better than the cheapo wireless phones sold at wal*mart for $70+. Not only that, the Bell phones don't emit electromagnetic radiation into my head while I am using them.
The electromechanical communications technology of the postwar Bell System was designed to survive a nuclear attack. Current "digital" telephony is much more hackable, buggable and failable. Remember the total failure in NYC of the cellular switching system on 9/11?
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Select a pc old enough not to be Rohs compliant but without many hours on it. For CDs use only archival-quality ones from that Japanese company with the name that starts with Tai. Seal the CDs in airtight metal containers. Put dissicant in the containers and flush them with nitrogen. Use silicone to seal the containers. DON'T use any sticky tape of any kind for anything. Have your welding shop build an airtight steel case out of .25" plate. Wrap the pc in heavy vinyl (but don't tape it!) and wedge it and the boxes of CDs in with dry wood (NOT plastic). Add lots of dissicant, close up the case, flush with dry nitrogen through the fittings installed for that purpose, seal them, paint the whole thing with several coats of epoxy paint, affix a brass plate explaining what it is, put it in your (above ground) vault...
Oh. Wait. You said FIFTY years. Just put the stuff in a box with a note taped to the side and stick it in a closet. It'll be fine.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It's a tough problem. Ceramic-package ICs were hermetically sealed, but plastic ones are not, and there's a long-term corrosion problem. Storage in shrink wrap, using dry air, heat-sealed plastic, and a "desiccant pack" inside to absorb any remaining moisture, will at least keep the corrosion problem down. That's easy to do. I'd suggest packing at least three of everything, so that people in the future can swap parts around if they have to. And include plenty of the consumables - blank disks, etc. I don't know if ink-jet ink would last, but laser toner probably would.
Older equipment is easier to restore. I'm currently restoring a Teletype Model 15, produced from 1930 through 1958. This unit was built during WWII. It hadn't been powered up in many years. I put on a modern power plug and cranked it up, and it started turning. Many parts were sluggish; the oil had congealed. At first, the main clutch wouldn't release. But after a few minutes of warmup, it was running again. I'm now cleaning it up and will do a proper lube job.
But a Teletype Model 15 has hundreds of oiling points, dozens of screwdriver adjustments, a cast-iron base, and weighs over 50 pounds. Nobody will put up with that in modern equipment to get a machine that can easily last a century.
There is nothing you could do to make the old hardware functional in 50 years. You will run into a slew of problems.
The first problem you will run into is the hard drives not working in a scant decade. They are not designed to last that long and, particularly after years of use, won't. The polymer lubricants used to keep the things turning will be dry and the drive will either not spin up or spin up and quickly self-destruction.
The second problem is data longevity. Bit rot will set in fairly quickly. While I have no direct evidence as to how quickly, I guess it'll happen within the first 10 years to the point where the data is inaccessible/irretrievable. (Think: a lot of software only 10 years old is no longer accessible; you need to continually bit-refresh medium, or replace it outright.)
I suspect even the best CDR media will not last 20 years. Tape might, but you'd run into bitrot with that, as well. CD pressed media might do the trick.
I'd say your best bet would be to provide media with emulation software. In 50 years, the entire paradigm of computing is likely to have changed.
Think, for a moment, about the computing devices your parents had available to them in the 1960s. That's a lot of change, and we're still undergoing said change. A ~15-year standard like VGA/d-sub connectors or USB isn't likely to mean anything by then - and what if a USB mouse or monitor doesn't work, while the rest of the system does? The system as a whole provides a further problem, because a failure of anything else on the system is likely to result in a fairly obvious
Don't put a computer in a school time capsule unless you expect it to merely be a curiosity. Even the 5.25" floppies and Apple II system put in the ground when I was in 2nd grade (20 years ago) is now likely inoperable and poses nothing much more than a curiosity.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'm wondering if the "time capsule" will be painted hunter-green and have the "WM" logo on the side. "No problem, we'll store the contents of your "time capsule" at our special "aggregation facility."" Some folks at Stanford seem to think it's a good idea.
Debian Stable should run on it just fine 50 years from now. Maybe it will be version 5.0 by then
Plug in, turn on... Fzzzzzt!!! Kazap!!! Badaboom!!! I seriously don't expect a consumer grade PC to work after 50 years with no power. All the capacitors will be dry and shorted out for one.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
use dvd's made by taiyo yuden. Those are better quality and should last longer practically..
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
capacitors degrade over time.
You can't just plug in old radios from 50 years ago and expect to be safe.
Think about the power supplies. Big caps in there!
The only way to preserve a computer for any length of time is to use it monthly. To use it for any length of time one must migrate it to a virtual machine. To keep on using the virtual machine one must migrate the virtual machine to newer hardware yearly.
here's a couple semi-long term anecdotal pieces of evidence that should give sober pause for anyone thinking this could be so easy.
i) back in 1965, my father bought a top-of the line Grundig reel-to-reel recorder. i remember him using that thing through the 1970's. it was pulled out from time to time in the 1980's -- still working after fifteen years, and built like a tank. then i remember him pulling it out and firing it up back 1990's - probably about 1992 -- well it wouldn't work. like good geeks, we opened it up to try and fix 'er. well, i was quite surprised that some of the plastic gears in there were still functioning, but one of the gears had been made out of a lead-alloy composite... and had crumbled to DUST.. after not even two decades.. there is NOWHERE that would still make that gear.
ii) in the late 1980's i managed to get my first really good stereo system -- a pair of $400 speakers, with 'specially engineered acoustic resonance foam' in the woofers -- well the special foam that made them sound better and cost more only lasted abotu twelve years, and they too -- CRUMBLED TO DUST. the paper cone speakers lasted longer.
iii) around 1994, i went out and got myself a top-of-the-line Sony VHS Stereo VCR, thinking i wanted to invest in a good one that would last. well, at christmas 2007, i wanted to digitize some old family video from 1995 -- hooked up the VCR -- and the video the logic for the tape mechanisms and the video out electronics is shot -- so much for longevity. the same is true of my sony 8mm handycam -- tape and electronics are self-destructing in less then 10-15 years.
this gives great pause to my childhood aspirations of expecting old electronics to last at least for a couple decades. the old tube radios and record players - despite thier great limitations, were inherently simpler devices, and with constant care could last an order of magnitude longer than modern minitiature micro-electromechanical devices. we still have some 1940's and 1950's stereo tube equipment that has moved with us from house to house, and still works fine -- never even had to change the tubes in over 40 years -- so it makes me think that old audio gear (amps and radio) generally outlasts new (1980's and 1990's) video electronics. this confirms my suspicions that the smaller and finer they make the electronics -- the less long they last (in decades).
now to expect modern drives with their much finer tolerances to simply 'boot up' after fifty years sitting there -- that seems a bit of a fairy tale, given my experience.. :-^
2cents from toronto
jp
After having successfully rescued some 1929-era shellac 78rpm records, I tried to migrate some late 1990s era CD-Rs to a hard drive and most of them had already deteriorated enough to corrupt data. There are tools to overcome some of this, but don't count on any media lasting in an "archive" - you must have plan in place to regularly migrate the data to newer media. You can read more about it here: http://blog.ambor.com/2009/01/rescuing-corrupted-files-from-old-media.html
Which is why the RoHS requirements were a BAD idea. We should be mandating recycling of the solder, not using a shittier one that causes devices to fail faster. I bet if someone sat down and figured up how much extra waste is being created by the shitty solder it is more than offsetting any gains to the environment by cutting down the lead content. (...) Maybe all the bloggers out there and engineers ought to start raising a fit and pointing out that it is having the opposite effect on the environment than what was intended. Because I know that I personally having been tossing a whole lot more E-waste since the RoHS requirements came into play.
Absolutely. And hybrid cars which save a little on fuel but won't last as long as a regular car because they're more complicated and therefore more expensive to troubleshoot. And front-load washing machines, which save a little water but have the same problems as hybrid cars. And compact fluorescent light bulbs which save a little operating energy, but at what price to the manufacturing and recycling energy? (Hey, my tungsten lightbulbs aren't wasteful anyway; I live in a northern climate so the heat they throw off still reduces the time my furnace has to run!)
It's a crock. I care about not wasting. I care about not making a mess of the planet. And I think that's the vast majority of people. But when you have people who are so rabid about the subject that they feel the need to call themselves "environmentalists", they're usually sufficiently scientifically ignorant that they're overtly dangerous to the health of the planet.
I have one like that at work. He jumps up and down and yells about how we're killing the planet. Let's see...
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Package up the old computer with archival media and instructions to open it again in 10 years.
Instruct the folks in 2019 to replace the batteries and re-burn copies of all the discs to fresh archival media. Then have them add their own computer to the capsule, re-seal, and store it until 2029. Repeat every 10 years.
In 50 years you have not one old broken computer that won't work, but a series of old computers, one for each decade, each of which has been refreshed and refurbished every decade so that they all work. Much more likely to succeed, and much more interesting to boot.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
You'll want some sort of dessicant in the container just in case of water or humidity damage. I recommend a cloth bag full of silica gel cat litter. It's amazing stuff, we use it in the lab to preserve samples.
It will be 1970 when it boots up - the CMOS battery will be dead.
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There are likely to be components in those PCs which were not made very well and will fail over time. Leaky capacitors, etc. Also the batteries might start leaking. Who knows what else might fail from age... somebody might go find these things 50 years from now and have a pile of toxic chemicals where PCs were expected to be. Fun!
Well just my 2 cts but... ... you know, that the rest of the world (this insignificant small part of the planet, that is not the USA) hasn't used 110V for decades now?
Probably this may happen to god's own country one day within the next 50 years.
But well, probably you go metric before that.
Jeeez.