Amiga Community Collaborates On Restorative Gel To Brighten Your Old Plastic

jamie pointed out an Amiga community that took a discovery of how to restore old computer plastic, super-charged it, and then opened the process to the public domain. Time to spruce up those old dusty TRS-80s in the basement. "All of the initial tests were done with a liquid and we realized that for large parts this was getting expensive, so the next stage was to make a paintable 'gel' version that could be brushed onto larger surfaces. This was tried in Arizona in the sun and the UK under a UV lamp and was found to be just as effective as the liquid. We have now released this to the public domain for anyone to use as we can't patent it and we coined the nickname 'Retr0brite' for it, as it summed up what we were actually doing with it."

Comments

From the wiki

[FrameRotBlues]

However, a chance discovery was made in March 2008, by The CBM Museum at Wuppertal in Germany, that immersing parts in a solution of Hydrogen Peroxide could partially reverse the process.

They accidentally immersed old plastic parts in Hydrogen Peroxide?

Sounds like a "whoops" turned into a "cool!"

Re:From the wiki

[smellsofbikes]

Or they were trying to bleach it and clean off all the accumulated crap, and found that it did that *and* changed the surface chemistry as well.

I used to restore old watches -- the mechanical ones. They're jammed with grease and wax that mechanics didn't put there and usually that's a large part of why they're not working. It's fairly routine to dunk something that looks like the Antikythera Mechanism into a cleaner just to get all the horribleness out.
(A note to anyone considering doing this: avoid ammonia. Those are very delicate little bits of brass. Ammonia works spectacularly well. If you leave a watch movement in there for an hour rather than just a few minutes, you'll come back to find all the wax *and* all the metal completely gone except for the steel and a few of the large pivots.)

Amiga Community

[Lord Apathy]

Both of them?

Re:After so much silence..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fuck computers. We're going into gels."

I think KY already has a product for that.

Hydrogen peroxide attacks some plastics

[hcdejong]

You'd have to be careful with at least PET, because that degrades when exposed to H2O2 for more than a minute or so. So I'd check for possible side-effects before attempting to spruce up your preciousss with this.

Re:Hydrogen peroxide attacks some plastics

[poot_rootbeer]

You'd have to be careful with at least PET, because that degrades when exposed to H2O2 for more than a minute or so

No no, they're talking about restoring AMIGAS, not those angular early 8-bit Commodore computers.

Re:How many other uses?

[je ne sais quoi]

I immediately thought of old toys, like my precious ships for the star wars action figures, the imperial shuttle or b-wing whose plastic is all faded and yellowed. Now I can run around the room with them making laser noises and re-enact scenes from ROTJ just like I did when I was eight. Awesome!

Strong oxidants and glycerine?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Better make it only in small batches. B-(

Don't knock the Amiga

[Weaselmancer]

Back in the day, Ami was a real contender.

Buy an A1000 and run some graphics demos on one. Then try to remember that it was made in 1985.

I've always dreamed of what the world would be like if modern computing had gone this route. Imagine your OS as a bank of roms, and your PC as a fully integrated machine rather than a patchwork of PCI cards and third party drivers.

Seriously, Amiga was an excellent design.

Re:Don't knock the Amiga

[mdwh2]

I've always dreamed of what the world would be like if modern computing had gone this route. Imagine your OS as a bank of roms, and your PC as a fully integrated machine rather than a patchwork of PCI cards and third party drivers.

But in many ways, I'd argue that modern computing has gone the Amiga way: consider how most motherboards now have everying on board, and it's only the graphics card that people might optionally have as an extra for performance. (Whilst drivers can be a pain, they have the advantage of allowing standardisation through an API - the Amiga was moving towards a driver model for graphics and so on, and I'd have thought it a great advantage for any modern machine taking advantage of 3D hardware, so chances are that a hypothetical modern Amiga would have drivers too. Chances are they would've dropped the ROMs too - AmigaOS 3.5 onwards came entirely on CD.)

Consider: today I run a multitasking OS, with combined GUI and command line. The machine I use has dedicated graphics and sound chips, and everything's integrated on the motherboard. Finally, I'd argue that today's machines are modern Amigas. Compare that to the DOS based PCs, or single-tasking non-command-line and no-chipsets on the classic Macs. Looking back, it's laughable how people back then tried to justify their expensive primitive purchases (e.g., claiming that it was better not to have a GUI), when we see how computers are designed today. The Amiga was written off as a games machine, but what is it that now drives the 3D graphics industry, and arguably the personal computer industry as a whole? Yes, I like having a fast machine with decent graphics in front of me, rather than a boring command line operated piece of business furniture, or a black and white interface that doesn't let me do things the way I want it. The only thing stopping it being a modern Amiga is the trademark.

Re:Don't knock the Amiga

[mmontour]

Buy an A1000 and run some graphics demos on one. Then try to remember that it was made in 1985.

Remember also that many of the main features of Microsoft's Windows 95 (32-bit code, preemptive multitasking, long-filename support) were present in the original "Amiga 85" OS.

Re:Don't knock the Amiga

[commodore64_love]

Everyone blames Commodore, but let's face it, the early 90s was a rough time for the computer industry. Atari went bankrupt (goodbye ST), Commodore went bankrupt (goodbye Amiga), and Apple would have gone bankrupt too (goodbye Macintosh) if it had not been saved at the last minute by Gates. The industry was consolidating around the Intel 486 platform, and I don't think ST, Amiga, or Macintosh would have survived even if run by someone as brilliant as Andrew Carnegie. What they offered looked unattractive to early 90s computer users who believed alternative platforms were as obsolete as newspapers today, and that everyone should be using the soon-to-arrive Windows95. In fact I can still remember the near-hatred from my fellow students: "You use an Amiga??? Everyone knows companies use IBM, and so too should you. You wasted your money."

Statistics show that less than 7% were interested in a non-IBM-compatible platform in 1994. That was quite a blow to Commodore who just eight years earlier controlled 40% of the market. Even now I can't believe Macintosh is still alive (3% share). I suspect if Gates focused his energies, and stopped Ballmer from making boneheaded decisions, he could kill-off the Mac fairly easily..... just as he almost succeeded in doing circa 1994.

Point - Nothing could have saved Commodore. Just as nothing could save JVC from losing its VHS market. The market had changed. (link - http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/10 )

Re:Don't knock the Amiga

[commodore64_love]

I agree. Today's PCs are not Amigas, but they are the result of copying the Amiga philosophy. Computer makers aren't stupid. They may have dismissed the Amiga as "just a gaming machine" like they did with the C=64, but they also saw that Amigas were being used by Disney to animate movies, by NBC and WB to create special effects, and by desktop publishers for integrating graphics into print media like magazines.

It was only natural, rather than lose those users to Commodore, the computer makers adapted. They produced the Sound Blaster to create music. They produced graphics cards that did 16 colors than 256 colors than 65,000. It was a slow process that took around ten years time (1985-to-1995) but eventually PCs became "gaming machines" themselves. Except they wisely called it "multimedia" rather than "gaming".

Oh well. The business people did what they are paid to do - dismiss the competition as non-relevant "gaming junk" while secretly copying those same ideas into their own machines, until they can co-opt the market for themselves. It's not personal; just business.

Re:Don't knock the Amiga

[commodore64_love]

Anyone who denies Apple was near-bankruptcy circa 1994 is in denial. I was there. I recall reading the news articles and wondering if Apple would make it, or if my Macintosh would soon become a paperweight like my Amiga had become.

One man's patina...

[RevWaldo]

...is another man's sickly yellow. The basic rule of thumb for antiques/collectibles is to never remove its patina e.g. all that crap that's built up on its surface over the years, as it's an undeniable indication of its age (plus sometimes it just looks cool.)

Then again, vintage car fans don't hesitate to break out the paint and the rust remover.

Will diehard technology collectors prefer plastic as yellow as a smoking lounge drop ceiling, or returned to its brilliant off-whiteness?

Re:not news: bleach alternative cleans things

[Kell Bengal]

The problem here is that it's not that the plastic is 'unclean' but that the material has chemically reacted with UV and fire retardants to fade the plastic itself. It's the MacBeth of stains - you scrub and it never comes out.

Pluses and minuses

[Ancient_Hacker]

What you're doing is applying an oxygenating bleach to the surface. Works quite well to remove the yellow. But anytime you apply oxygen to a surface you speed up the rate of .... oxidation!

So while you're whitening it, you're also speeding up the deterioration of the plastic.

If you've ever used an "ozone generator" to remove smoke odors you know it does that job very well, and it also destroys every rubber band, ballpoint pen, and bicycle tire in the area.

Re:After so much silence..

[fireman sam]

Or you can use the DIY Gentoo based computer called "Go fuck yourself"

Re:offtopic, but

[DECS]

You're looking for Paul Thurrott's SUPERSITE for WINDOWS.

He's the AM Radio of the tech industry and the intellectual force behind the Microsoft Party.

Hi - Let the flamefest begin.......

[MerlinUK]

Hi, I am the guy that wrote the Wiki. Now, I know that there are skeptics out there and I may have over simplified the science a bit so that non-nerds can understand what's going on, but I am open to listen to anyone who can explain the chemistry that is actually going on in a coherent way. I may have made it too simple I suppose. Regarding the ABS polymer itself; consider that black car bumpers and trim are made from (yes you've guessed it) ABS. These tend to go white (not yellow or brown) over a long time in sunlight. This is the ABS polymer degrading to the hydroperoxide via oxidation. The computer parts only go white if you use too strong a peroxide solution, so what is reacting under UV so quickly? My theory is it's the TBBP-A flame retardant which is active under UV and decomposes. There is also the phenomenon of migration, where ingredients can move within the plastic matrix and eventually get to the surface. I believe that the degradation products of TBBP-A migraet through the ABS and this is what make it discolour as the molecules attract oxygen molecules. There have also been comments elsewhere that the site is a hoax and that the photos are faked; if this were so, how could the photographs post in the various forums threads I added to the Reading section of the Wiki this morning be faked? They aren't, simple as......... I know I risk feeding trolls with this but this isn't a hoax. As this uses properietary products as part of the mixture, it couldn't be patented, however, I suppose I could have patented the use of H2O2 with TAED in a use for treating plastic. I chose not to and so it was released for all into the public domain. Don't flame me; try it for yourself. Let the flaming begin...........