28 Jan
1998
28 Jan
'98
9:26 a.m.
At 07:35 PM 1/28/98 GMT, you wrote:
A friend is heavily into classic cars; he says a car
depreciates
typically until it hits a low at about 13 years, after which its'
value rises. Computers probably do the same pattern although the time
probably varies. The trick is to know when the machine hits bottom and
which will go up from there. (If it climbs slowly, there's no hurry)
Not anymore. There's no way all these Pentium systems out today will ever
be worth anything, at least not in 13 years, IMHO. Maybe in about 30 years,
when most have been destroyed will they be truly worth something as an
classic.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
28 Jan
28 Jan
5:32 p.m.
When you think of "Classic" computers, what comes to mind? In our young
days, when many of us DREAMED of owning computers, or at least something
more than Sinclairs, those things were unattainable, like the Compaq
Portable in the ferry terminal.
These were things we dreamed about. Or, they were the stuff we cut our
teeth on, or drooled over because they were $20,000 or $250,000
machines. Now we can own one. I couldn't afford a NeXT when they were
10,000 or 3,000 dollars, but they work just as good now that they're
$350. And the luster is still there...
Sure, Pentiums will never be collectors, but maybe the Sparcs will, or
the Silicon Graphics.
Or the day the Cray is turned upside down in the dumpster at the local
Vincent De Pauls...
I mean, no one wants a "Tennessee Tom" 8086, but an IBM XT, I mean
really, that was the first,, sorta. The Apple. It's not a Mac or A
NeXT, but it was the first.
And the truely amazing thing isn't that they are old, or quaint toys,
but that they're just as useful now. Dbase II is still a good program.
I can still run WP4.2 on a PC, Aztech C still creates worthwhile
programs.
The cool thing and the weird thing is that Most kids/families can almost
obtain the Pentium and it's a family goal much like a washing machine.
Who's going to crave one (besides us, cause we are right now... ; -> .
Anyway...
Mike
John Higginbotham wrote:
Not anymore. There's no way all these Pentium systems out today will ever
be worth anything, at least not in 13 years, IMHO. Maybe in about 30 years,
when most have been destroyed will they be truly worth something as an
classic.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
29 Jan
29 Jan
6:58 a.m.
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1 p.m.
Speaking of which, where are all the Transputer cards for EISA sitting.
Are they still commanding $hundreds? A couple of T400s would be nice.
-Mike
Tony Duell wrote:
I suspect the real collectables will be the really obscure machines -
development systems, parallel machines, experimental machines, etc. No
idea if any will ever turn up second-hand, alas.
Mike
-tony 
1:33 p.m.
I don't think PC clones (apart from a very few)
will ever be collectable.
Certainly not the no-name machines.
They will be, eventually. An interesting parallel can be made to now very
collectable radios from the 1920s and 30s. Both they and PeeCees were
built like crap, worked like crap, often built by shakey companies
violating all sorts of things, and have almost zero engineering value.
I think laptops will be hot collectables, as they are small and often
clever.
Suns and SGIs, probably. Acorn RISC-PC's, probably.
Alphas, again
probably
I say yes to all of these. High quality things of any nature tend to
become collectable as soon as they fall out of popular use. Look at the
Sun-2 and 3 lines - they are now way obsolete, yet are still very popular
machines amongst the Sunheads.
I suspect the real collectables will be the really
obscure machines -
development systems, parallel machines, experimental machines, etc. No
idea if any will ever turn up second-hand, alas.
I know someone that could have purchased a CM-2 for $800. There was also
that Stardent machine that was mentioned on the list a few months ago.
Never say never.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
30 Jan
30 Jan
8:17 a.m.
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12:41 p.m.
Hmmm.... I am not convinced. For one thing, what
defines a particular
'no-name' PC? The motherboard isn't even standard in some of the ones
that I've seen...
Yes, but so were many of the parts to the old radios. Many are complete
nonames - many are even homebrews.
Well, some people collect radios for their appearance
- look at the
high-priced Catalin sets. Personally, I collect the radios with
interesting circuitry or unusual electronic features.
Who knows, maybe the trend towards curvy cases (one look I really hate,
and have to thank Sun repeated for resisting) and pastels will be hot
stuff in the future.
Yes, I think the technically interesting computers (and radios) will
always be at least somewhat popular to those that appreciate the innards.
That is why I tend to like IBM mainframes - the look like _nothing_ from
the outside, but inside they are pure magic.
I like all my computers to be working, and PC's,
especially laptops are
next-to-impossible to repair. It's much easier to repair an old radio -
just about the only custom parts will be coils and transformers, and those
can be rewound quite easily. There's no way you can replace an ASIC in a
laptop, even if you can figure out what the specifications should be.
It may prove to be an interesting problem. Perhaps old chips will have
definite market values just like tubes and valves. Vintage CRTs fall into
the same boat - once dead, you either rebuild them (only a few people can
do this, and it will cost you dearly), or you find a replacement thru the
collectors network.
Argh!!!. I wish I'd been offered a thing like
that.... Somehow I'd have
afforded it. As it is, I have to make do with a not-quite-classic AMT DAP
500 with a faulty PSU...
I probably would have coughed up that $800 really fast. There are probably
more Apple 1s left than CM-1s, 2s, etc. (all but the CM-5s, but how many
people can store a 20 ft. long computer anyway?).
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
1:16 p.m.
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31 Jan
31 Jan
12:14 a.m.
I can't see some ASIC off a PC card, which was
only available as part of
that card _ever_ being available as a spare part, though. The only way to
get it will be as part of the machine.
Very true.
I've not heard of _anybody_ who can make ASICs at
home, and I personally
doubt that such people will ever exist.
FPGAs! They are obviously here to stay now, and their densities keep
getting larger and larger (and the packages smaller and smaller).
And what about twenty years from now when Ronco starts selling the
Tabletop ASICmaster for four easy payments of $29.95?
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
5:47 a.m.
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11:57 a.m.
1) They're hardly original, which may bother some
people
The reason for using FPGAs (or whatever) is good if you can not find a
donor machine.
2) You'll probably have to make up a kludge-board
to get the power pins
and clock inputs in the right places. Doing that for a chip with pins on
a 0.5mm spacing will be interesting to say the least.
I did not say it would be _easy_. Anyway, many FPGAs are available in the
same styles of packages.
3) Remember you probably don't have complete
timing specs of the chip
you're trying to replace. You may not even have a functional spec. Trying
to design a replacement will be interesting...
Incredibly hard today, perhaps easy in the future. Envision a logic
analysis program that one could clip on a working chip (from another
machine, obviously) that would think a while then spit out several hundred
pages of HDL describing what it saw.
There's a chip in my HP Omnigo made by Vadem.
It's a complete PC/XT apart
from the memory (but including the CPU, DMA, interrupt controller, serial
port, keyboard interface, parallel port, etc) together with an LCD
controller. Trying to emulate _that_ in an FPGA would be an interesting
task, even with the data sheet (which I have, all 230 pages of it).
In ten years, what will FPGA densities be like? Probably way beyond what
they are now. How about core sets that could be dropped into (or added to)
FPGAs? The Z80 still lives in this fashion, with gate arrays, and probably
will continue to for ten more years.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
1 Feb
1 Feb
7:34 a.m.
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2:19 p.m.
Yes, but I've never met an FPGA (and I've used
most Xilinx families,
Altera, etc parts) where you could reassign power pins. Also, most (all?)
have a high-speed clock line that you should use for your master clock if
at all possible. FPGAs are not a 'drop-in' replacement for just any logic
chip.
I would like to make it clear that I am talking about possibilties ten or
twenty years from now. I realize that today's FPGAs would not stand a
chance replacing anything better than something more complex as a 2901.
Impossible. There could be hidden registers that were
never accessed
while you're looking at it. You would have to check _every_ possible mode
and _know_ you'd checked every possible mode. That's impossible if you
don't even have a specification of the chip.
Maybe not 100 percent, but maybe really close. Once again, think when you
will have something the power of a big T3E on your desk.
That's not the worry, although fitting that sort
of logic into _any_ FPGA
would be an interesting task.
Gate arrays and FPGAs are not THAT different. Anyway, real gate arrays are
getting like circuit boards - quick turnaround for just about anyone.
Someday they might even be so reasonably priced that any hobbiest could
special order one, just like the small circuit board shops.
Sure, and standard macros exist, and will continue to
exist, for most
FPGA devices. THe problem is that a chip this complex is going to have
some undocumented features that may or may not be used. Finding them,
figuring out how to implement them, etc, is going to be a lot of work.
If you do not get it correct the first time, well, then you get to have
some fun.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
12:55 a.m.
At 07:47 PM 1/31/98 +0000, you wrote:
There's a chip in my HP Omnigo made by Vadem. It's a complete PC/XT apart
from the memory (but including the CPU, DMA, interrupt controller, serial
port, keyboard interface, parallel port, etc) together with an LCD
controller. Trying to emulate _that_ in an FPGA would be an interesting
And hardly practical for repairing one machine, unless its worth a LOT
of money!
I've been considering duplicating the LED drivers for the old HP LED
calculators and even that's complicated and it's only a DIP IC.
Joe
task, even with the data sheet (which I have, all 230
pages of it).
William Donzelli
-tony
7:49 a.m.
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30 Jan
30 Jan
2:06 p.m.
On Fri, 30 Jan 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
I like all my computers to be working, and PC's,
especially laptops are
next-to-impossible to repair. It's much easier to repair an old radio -
just about the only custom parts will be coils and transformers, and those
can be rewound quite easily. There's no way you can replace an ASIC in a
laptop, even if you can figure out what the specifications should be.
Maybe not in this day and age. Who knows what wacky contraption some whiz
will invent in the future which will allow just such a thing? (Perhaps it
will be somebody among us here for just the purposes of restoring classic
computers in the year 2050).
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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5:33 a.m.
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