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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.)"
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.
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.
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.'"
Is all that really going to be necessary? People pull old Trash-80's or whatever out of closets and get them to work, and that's been 15-20 years maybe. Assuming the storage is kept cool and dry, I can't see any reason why the hardware wouldn't be usable after 50 years. Maybe throw in some extra RAM and a cloned HD as a just in case (or just two PC's).
As far as power goes, surely standardized power is embedded well enough at this point that at the very least adapters would be available in 50 years. Think about it; you probably wouldn't think twice about trying to plug in an old television from the 50's would you? Unless Vulcan's land tomorrow with a ship full of antimatter reactors I can't see us abandoning 110 anytime soon.
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.
Another idea... don't put it in an actual capsule at all.
Climate controlled closet, visual inspection of the system yearly, boot test every three years. Also, every year or two, fresh burns of optical media.
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
But the most important question would be: why? Do you really think that in 50 years anybody cares about a PC that was mediocre in the year 2000?
Time capsules are intended to preserve history for the future. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Wouldn't the capacitors be an issue on a TV that old? It's pretty common for old tube amps and pre-amps to have all the capacitors replaced by the audiophiles that buy them on ebay.
I sold an old tube pre-amp, and the guy said that if they don't replace them outright they'll hook up lightbulbs in series and slowly power up the device, using the lights to verify if the electrolytes are still good.
"Much better to give them code samples of your hello_world.c so they can laugh about how stuff was hard in the past."
From the desktop BASIC processor in my 1974 Math lab:
>10 print "Hello World"
>run
Hello World
>
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
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.
I get excited, not about the actual punch cards, but by seeing how much technology has evolved in so little time.
Dilbert RSS feed
Pfft, more like 'Holy crap, this thing is fast! It boots in minutes, not hours! But where is the dna scanner that tells the government who the operator is?'.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
*&^*(%(&*)!!!!! -- pressed "submit" before making my point... Hello World is not getting simpler over time, it's getting more complicated. Compare it in Fortran vs. PHP or BASIC vs. Java at http://www.roesler-ac.de/wolfram/hello.htm/ (hello world in 421 languages).
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
Yeah, but personally relevant and educationally relevant are two different things. Punch cards are something that I would discuss as a historical aside in a high school computer science or programming or technology class, and I might trot some out just to show students how far we've come. That doesn't mean that I still use them to store data, or that I am a punch card fanatic.
Please look at this through the eyes of a teacher; the goal of this project is not to get students using old technology, but simply to give them some understanding of what their teachers had to learn on. I had a teacher in high school who had some old magnetic disks that apparently had to be immersed in a fluid. He showed those to me and some other interested students as novelties.
Imagine how cool it would be if your children or grandchildren could see what you had to live with, technology wise. Wouldn't that teach them something about history, or give them some understanding of how different our culture was compared to their culture? Essentially, is the goal of education to give a student some practical skills and then boot them out into the world, or do we want to give them a context for their skills?
This kind of activity is educationally relevant because it allows students to feel like they've contributed something to the world or done something cool. When it's unearthed it will be valuable because it gives their grandkids an understanding of what was technologically advanced in the past.
SRSLY.
People pull old Trash-80's or whatever out of closets and get them to work, and that's been 15-20 years maybe. Assuming the storage is kept cool and dry, I can't see any reason why the hardware wouldn't be usable after 50 years.
The reason is tin whiskers. Electronic devices and components made before RoHS requirements will far outlast anything made since then.
In other words, it's highly unlikely that in 15-20 years, anyone will pull a working PS3 or Xbox 360 (or Core 2 Duo-based PC) out of the closet.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Don't hard drives decay quickly if unused?
Also, you might want a cracked version of windows, Microsoft probably won't have the activation servers running in 50 years.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
Play the statistics. Tip the entire pile of 200 CDs into the time capsule bin. You gain exactly zero advantage by putting them in the landfill, and have a "maybe one will work" if you forward them to the future. I don't know about you, but I'll take a "maybe" over a "guaranteed zero" any day.
well, it shouldn't be that hard to switch domestic voltages. Japan is always pushing infrastructure upgrades, like switching from 4:3 to 5:3 widescreen, or from analog TV broadcasts to digital, or being the first to adopt the 3G WCDMA standard.
by including a mix of 240V and 100V in new buildings, and gradually adding 240V outlets to existing buildings, a country that replaces their electronics and appliances so frequently should be able to switch to a new voltage in less than a decade.
i mean, buying a transformer and installing some new power sockets shouldn't be as expensive as buying a new digital HDTV set. the average Japanese consumer probably spends more money to just have the latest hi-tech gadget or cutting edge cellphone every couple of months.
lol i think you've missed the point of what the lightbulb does lol
The lightbulb acts as a current/voltage limiter. Picture this:
It's crude, but effective, and a trick electricians have been using for years.
(Caveat: the actual technical facts of the matter are somewhat more complicated than this, but given the quality of your comment I doubt you're capable of understanding them...)
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Most every PC I've come across with a bad BIOS battery will run once you've configured the BIOS and will hold the settings until you turn it off again. The best bet would be pull the battery off the motherboard (to prevent corrosion when it leaks), pack the computer with a note on how to configure the BIOS and what kind of battery needed to retain the settings and the specifications for it. They'll probably be able to get a CR2032 in 50 years, as it's an extremely common type of battery, and even if they aren't, I've find motherboards extremely tolerant anyway - anything 1.8-3.5V or so that they can jam in there will hold the settings.