8 Oct
2007
8 Oct
'07
9:45 p.m.
In 08/10/2007, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
And if you don't know what a sump plug is, how to find one, how to
remove one, how to refit one? If you don't know when to do it or what
to replace the oil with? If you don't know what to catch the oil in or
how to refill it?
As it happens, I do know these. I just *hate* that sort of job and
would rather pay someone to do it for me.
But I know lots of vehicle owners - the vast majority, indeed, I
suspect - who *don't*.
*No*. It's an interesting fact. It doesn't make we want to take one apart!
I don't
know how to change the oil on most of my bikes, let alone
I[ve yet to meet an engine where you don't change the oil by removing the
drain plug on the bottom of the sump.... Oh, absolutely. And the only way to get the experience
of driving an
E-type is to actually drive one. Sure. Which is why I _can_ understand
people who own and drive classic cars but pay others to maintain them
(assuming the latter are actually clueful...)
But that's not the same thing. The point is that if you want the
expeirence of driving an E-type, you have to do that, in a real E-type.
There's no simulator that comes close. You can't make your modern car
behave in the same way. But if you want to run, say, RSX-11 or CP/M or an
HP9830 program there are simulators that run on modern PCs that let you
do jsut that. And the classic software 'looks and feels' just the same.
Well, no, it doesn't, not really. There is a pleasure to using the
real thing which is not recreated at all by using an emulator.
If I want to play an old copy of Nemesis, I'll run it on MAME. The
game is the thing and I have neither the money nor the space for an
arcade cabinet.
If I want to play with AmigaOS, I get out the Amiga and boot it. And
whereas that might be a new computer to you, it dates back to when I
was about 16y old. I'm now 40. To me, an Amiga is a machine from a
lost golden age of computer design diversity.
I like the Zen minimalism of 8-bit home micros, but I have no *use*
for them. I could, I suppose, play some classic games on them. On a
16-bit home micro with a GUI, I can write and perhaps at a push use
the Web, and getting it on the web will be instructive and
educational.
But I personally have no use for a multiuser host machine and never
have had. A mini or even an old mainframe might be /interesting/ but I
have absolutely no function that it can perform for me, so there's not
much point in having one. I didn't aspire to own one when I was a kid
and I don't now. For me, computers got interesting when they could
display graphics, and they got pleasant and fun to *use* when they got
GUIs and could multitask. I'd love to know more about some of the
classic minis and their OSs, but I don't have the room or the time or
any conceivable use whatsoever, including just play.
You really seem to have great difficulty accepting that others do not
think as you do!
True enough. But I find there is certainly beauty in
these old computers,
and _that_ eauty can only be appreciated if you understand how they work.
I find beauty in the ones I'm interested in. I know how the custom
chips that make an Amiga into an Amiga work, what they do and why and
how. I'm not remotely interesting in knowing how to solder one in
place or how to troubleshoot it using a logic analyser, any more than
- say, if I wanted my cat spayed, I want a good and reasonably
inexpensive local vet, I don't want to know how to do the operation
myself!
Wow! I
honestly did not know such tech went back more than 10-15y. Amazin=
g.
See what you're missing out on by not looking into the older machines. The machine with that 16-layer board wasn't even
described as a computer.
It's a calculator. The PSB is actually the main ROM -- the bits are
stored by inductive coupling between the PCB tracks inside this
multi-layer board. 512 locations of 64 bits IIRC.
THis machine, the HP9100B, is probably the most beautiful piece of
engineering I've ever worked on. But you only spot that if you understand
what's going on inside.
When I see /Selaginella/ in a pot at Kew, I can (and have, to the
utter mystification of several friends) go into rhapsodies about the
evolutionary importance of the Lycopodiae and the remarkable
happenstance in the survival of one for 400,000,000 years after most
of its kind died out. I think it's an amazing organism. That doesn't
mean I expect everyone else to, or feel that any gardener should know
what a clubmoss is and how to cultivate one.
Let it go. You have your interests, I have mine. I'm not telling you
you're wrong; I admire your skills and knowledge. Please stop telling
me that I'm wrong for not wanting to know how to disassemble and
rebuilt the machines I use!
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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