16 Jun
2009
16 Jun
'09
11:13 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Ture, but I wonder what the relative rates of survival are for valve
radios and classic computers. Certainly computers are a lot newer (which
counts in their favour), and they were more expensive to start with which
means they may have been kept.
I am also interested in old clocks and old
(valve) radios, and none of
the magazies devoted to collecting/restoring those seem to think there's
much a problem. The 'pool' of both of those items is surely finite too.
It's just a matter of degree. I suspect there were very many more valve
radios produced than classic computers, probably a couple orders of
magnitude. However, even those will be, for all practical purposes, gone in time. While it won't have any effect on
you or me, run the
clock ahead a hundred years... and very little of either will remain.
While that is almost certainly true, it's hardly a reason for not
obtaining such machines now while you can, and enjoying them -- if you
wnt to run such a machine. If you don't, well fine...
No it's
not free. Even if the emulator software is free, the machine to
run it on is not. Period. You have, alas, touched a nerve here, I object
to this attitude that 'everybody' has a PC/cellphone/MP3 player/digital
camera. I don't, nor do many people I know.
You've got to look at the numbers... When the IBM PC was first
released, fewer than 5% of homes in the U.S. had computers. The number
went over 50% in 2000, and has not looked back. Do the math. 10 times
as many people have computers now, as did then. If everybody wanted a
classic computer, even a personal classic, there aren't enough to go around.
More than half of current households have a PC. What percentage have
o'scopes? Quite small, I'm sure. The chances of a person being able to
So? 'socpes are not hard to find, if you wsnt one. Ditto for all the
other tools and equipment you might need.
run an emulator are significantly better than their
chances of being
able to work on old hardware and fix it. And, for those who do not have
I've always had the attidude that if I can't do something but need to do
it, it's time for me to learn how to do it. Not give up. That's why I
learnt (and am still learning) how to fix SMPSUs, how to understand
microcode, how to use machine tools, and so on.
Put it this way, I'd rather learn how to do something like that than run
an emulator on an undocumented (to the sort of level I call 'documented')
machine under an OS that I don't have the source for. If I have problems
with that I can't solve them logically. If I am using tools/equipment
that I am capable of understnading and things go wrong, I can use a
logical procedure to sort it out. And I much prerfe that.
the requisites, what is the cost? What's the cost
of an old PC
machine? I see them all the time for less than $100. What's the cost
of an electronics shop? I spent thousands, and was still lacking many
items.
So have I. But I expect all my tools and mcuh of my test gear to outlive
me. I wouldn't expect a PC to do that. I suspect the total cost of
owenership over my lifetime is cheaper for the electroncis stuff than PCs.
It's clearly true that not EVERYBODY has any of the items you list.
However, most people have access to most of them, and the percentages
keep rising.
It doesn't stop me getting annoyed when it's assumed I have them. The
next time somebody tells me to 'upload my photos', I am liable to use my
monorail camwera as a substitue clue-by-four :-)
In fact for me to be able to run any of the
emulators at a sensible speed
it would cost me more than I've spent on any one of my classic computers.
OK, I was lucky and got many of them before they became collectable, but
I've bought interesting machines (to me) in the last year or so for a lot
less than I'd spend on a machine to run an emulator.
I think you're assuming you need a new machine to run an emulator....
Not true! A five-year-old PC is quite cheap. Not
useful in the "speed
demon" sense, and not yet "classic," they sit at the nadir of their
value. Fish THERE for cost effectiveness.
That's not the total cost of ownership as well you know. Do I have to
poitn out that to keep such a machine running I would have to
significantly upgrade some of my test gear _and_ spend a lot of time
working out how it should work so I can fix it when it doesn't.
Personally I'd rather keep classics working.
Oh, no, that doesn't sound crazy. I share your
interest. I just don't
always want to HAVE TO solve problems before I can accomplish
something. My current set-up is much more reliable than the IMSAI
Nor do I. I expect my tools to work properly, if they don't, I fix them.
But I don't class my clasisc computers as tools.
For example, one machine I've been working on recently is an HP120 -- a
Z80A-based CP/M box. I assume it could run something like Wordstar. But I
am not going to use it as a word processor, I'll stick to LaTeX on this
machine for that. The HP120 is an interesting machine to investigate and
get running, it's not a machine I am going to do real work on.
-tony