26 May
2010
26 May
'10
10:42 a.m.
My 2 pennorth,
The business of listing "4 systems you have had experience of" is a
little odd & seems to hint at an administration that don't know one end
This was on the memebrship form for the Computer Conservation Society
when I joined. It was something like : 'What vintage computers do you
have expeirence of' and had 4 spaces to write them in with some way of
indicating if the expeirence was as a designer, an builder, a programmer,
or a user.
It makes some sense for early one-off machines like EDSAC. It makes
rather less sense for the sort of machines that most of us work on...
of an electrolytic from the other, it's rather
like choosing a builder
based upon "what type of housing stock he's worked on". ("Door
sticking?, No mate, I only do victorian terraces & 1930s semis")
Yes. For example, I will admit I've never worked on an HP2100
minicomputer. But I've worked on many other machines of that period (as
an enthusiast, nothing more) and I am darn sure that given the manuals
(which from the ones I've read are excellent) I could get one going. Even
without the manuals I reckoin I could make a showing...
Personally I was musing with the idea of volunteering
when the kids are
both in school, as I'm 44 and have been doing electronics for about 42
Like me, then..
years, and I'm not a million miles away, but
it's going to kill me
seeing stuff rot, and not being able to get my hands dirty for the sake
of a piece of paper.
I juut hope it's changed a lot in the last few years. However reading the
report of the restoration of the air traffic control PDP11s in Computer
Ressrection did not fill me with any confidence at all.
-tony