14 Jan
2004
14 Jan
'04
5:08 p.m.
To further this depressing story, even if you were to
save a room full of
old computers to run the actual software on, in time they would break down
and the integrated circuits inside would be no longer available for repair,
assuming that you were able to secure copies of the proprietary hardware
manuals that would be needed to maintain the systems...
Presumably if you have the full schemaitcs and the data sheets on all the
chips (let's hope they're nice simple TTL chips :-)) then it would be
possible to emulate said chips using whatever technology is around in 50
years time (OK, using a 1 million gate FPGA to replace a 7400 is
overkill, but it would work :-)).
I intend keeping my PERQs and PDPs running for as long as possible by
doing things like that (and yes, I have schematics, I have databooks. All
on _paper_)
-tony