18 May
2010
18 May
'10
11:47 a.m.
RodSmallwood [rodsmallwood at btconnect.com] wrote:
Indeed it would. But how likely is that? A catastrophic failure of the
PSU resulting in the machine catching fire would do it, but I hardly
think that (a) you would just apply power to see what happens and (b) you
wouldn't run it unattended. Which IMHO means that such a failure is very
unlikely.
It seems to be a bit like the aircraft
preservation
people. One of everything but nothing flies. I just hate
that. If something was built to run and can run again with
out damage it should.
It would be sad to blow up something valuable like a PDP-1.
It would be much sadder to lose the last Lancaster bomber during
a test flight, especially as someone would have to be in it at the
time (to say nothing about where it might end up a few seconds later);
so I'm tempted to cut the aircraft restorers quite a lot more slack
here :-)
Oh, sure. Similarly, I can see not taking a very rare classic car on
public roads (some idiot might crash into you, no matter how careful you
are). But I can see driving such a classic car on a test track somewhere.
Aircraft are a lot more risky for all concerned, so I can understand why
you'd not want to fly one.
But this doesn't apply to classic computers. I can think of no good
reason not to run them from time to time.
-tony