18 Jun
2005
18 Jun
'05
6:40 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote the single quoted stuff:
Why not? Because it doesn't have the same nostalgia factor as the real
You do realise I was being sarcastic, I hope.
I, probably more than anybody here, like to run the real hardware. I like
to use the origianl storage devices, terminals, etc wherever possible.
Yes I might add modeen stuff _as well_, but I keep the original stuff going.
I am very much a hardware person. To me a computer is a complicated
(normally) electronic circuit. I am interested in the complete circuit,
not just the CPU. That's one little bit of it. Other parts, including the
PSU, can be interesting too.
I may well
replace the PSUs in a KL10 with SMPSUs. That reduces the
operating costs by more than $30/day. Compuserve did this to their KL10s
Why not replace them with a PC running an emulator and reduce the
operating costs still futher? hardware? Because it is fun to have real blinking
lights instead of
emulated blinking lights? Because it is fun to touch the real item and
plug in real cards and connect real cables?
Of course.
To me (a
hardware hacker) the design of the PSU _is_ part of the design
of the machine, and should br preserved (I've seen at least as many
interesting PSU designs as, say, CPU designs...)
Tony, you have to have a consistent story on this one. You don't have
$100 to buy a used but usable PC for the times that one is needed, but you are critical of somebody who wants to swap out the
power supply of
his computer to save $900/month on electricity. Would you advocate that
he leave in the original supply and then never use it? How is that a
better outcome?
I'd probably rather want to reduce the operating hours (but not to zero),
and keep the machine original.
-tony