8 Aug
2012
8 Aug
'12
11:43 a.m.
Well what do you know!
I thought my radical views would attract some adverse comments.
DOn't worry, the flames wil lcome :-)
Instead I get agreement from a well known and
established collector.
If you mean me (as per the message you rplied to), I would not describe
myself in that way :-)
As you know I am ex-DEC and therefore concentrate on that make.
My goal is to restore back to running order as they left the factory.
Mine too. In fact I will admit I know little about 'cosmetic repair and
resotration'. To me a computer is interesting because it 'computes'. Not
for the colour of the case paint :-). Others may welll have differnt
views onthsi, and IMHO, that's a good thing (we can't all do everything)
but anyway...
My articles (for HPCC) on repariing HP9800 machines cover just about
every 'workign part', even how to strip and rebuild the original coooling
fan, but I say little, if anything, on restoring the case.
Whilst many computers and peripherals are well
designed and look quite good
the essential point is what they can do and have done. It's the fact that
the same machine can be used for a myriad of tasks.
This was the key point in Alan Turing's 1936 'On Computable Numbers'.
So two identical computers sitting alongside each but turned off are the
same thing. Turn them on and one controls traffic lights and the other holds
medical records. Therein lies the reason to restore to working condition and
not to static display or store them.
YEs. A computer is not, and never will be, a piece of 'fine art', and for
a museum to treat it in the same way as, say, an Old Master painting is
to show a fundamental lack of understanding of this IMHO. COmptuers were
used, they were repaired. Very rarely do yoy get an old machine where
every part is origianl, just as it left the factory. And while a museum
should attempt to preserve the 'fabric' of the machine as much as
possible, that should not (IMHO) be at the expense of not running the
machine. By all means keep logs of waht wa changed, repalced, not
original, etc. But still keep the machine running.
For my eersonal colelction (which is not a museum and neve will be), my
policy is to perform any reversable modificaion which keeps the thing
operaitonal. I'll even drill new mounting holes if I have to repalce a
component. But nothing more. I preserve the electronic design of the
machine, even the PSU and fan motor driver (!). SO I'll replace a
ragulator transistor that's failed, but won't replace the entire PSU with
a PC PSU. I'd amke a homebrew add-on board to expand the machine,
interface it to <whatever>, but said board must be able to work without
modifications and will be clearly labelled to indicate it's not original.
I cannot see why known hobby restorers are never
approached by museums
saying 'We have an XYZ123 system in store. If you restore it to working
order then it will go on display with a small card saying restored by Joe
Bloggs or whoever.' This reverses the donation flow, does not deplete the
private collection stock and brings more items into display at little or no
cost.
This is one of my biggest moans about a certain computer museum over
here. They will not accept that hobbyists are a useful resource. Or at
leat, they asked me what 4 (IIRC) machines I had knowledge off. Darn it.
that varies with time. And anyway, I might have rather more of a clue on
a machien that I've never seen than some other people
There is also the issue that repairing a machien now is very different to
repairing it when it was in use, and when there were 'swap kits' of
known-good boards, etc available. No, I am not advocting board-swpaping
(we all know my views on that), but it's even more pointless if you don't
have known-good boards to swap in.
What this leads to is that the skills of a field service engineer, or
even a depor service engineer from the company when the machine was in
current use are perhaps less valualbe for restoring said machine in a
museum than the skills of a hobbyist who's taught himself how to work on
simialr machiens and debugs them from the ground up And yet I've yet to
find a museum in the UK that recognises this.
-tony