Well, the process was first introduced in January of '09, so the year test would have been passed on those done in the first six months. The only thing that's been reported so far is in some cases is a reversal of the whitening process, with some of the treatments starting to yellow again. Merlin (the originator) said: "Retr0bright reverses the yellowing process, it's not a permanent cure. If the surface of the plastic is still open to the air, it will yellow again, as the bromine free radical reaction is reversible. The permanent fix it is to coat it with clear satin acrylic lacquer to seal the surface off from the air. No oxygen, no oxidation; simple, really." It's available in hobby shops (in spray form) and usually used my modelers and the like to protect paint, it's not a heavy varnish or something similar. As far as blooming, that usually occurs in areas where the spreadable version of the mixture was left on for to long or allowed to dry. I have not heard of it happening when submerging in the pure liquid version. In other cases, some people have decided not to use the actual mixture and simply use the peroxide portion as a shortcut which has caused blooming. The process will also caused blooming on dark colored plastic, and as such is only for white/tan colored plastics. I've personally used it on an Apple III, and white Bally Computer case with stellar results, which you can see here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/138244-how-to-remove-yellowing-from-an… That entire thread is also full of further discussion, testimony (and pictures) as well as comments by some who have had blooming as result of one of the reasons mentioned above. Marty On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Teo Zenios <teoz at neo.rr.com> wrote:

On 7/29/10 6:47 AM, Richard wrote: Absolutely not.

This is one method that is used. Often a wax undercoat is applied, which makes the whole process pretty reversible. I am not sold on the retobrite method - it just seems like it somehow damages the plastic. I think I would rather give yellowed plastic (which, for the stuff I collect, is not too much of an issue) a thin overspray of latex paint - pretty harmless stuff. -- Will

Nor am I... Apart fro mthe appearance, is there any other effect driectly related to the yellowing (i.e. is the yellowed plastic more fagile, and applying retrobrite will reverse this)? Does painting over the top simply improve the appearance, or will it help with the other effects too? The point is that for mr the appearance is not too important (obviously I am not going to deliberately yellow my plastic cases, but when they have yellowed it doesn't bother me too much). But if the yellowing also damages the plastic in some other way, and there's a way to halt/reverse this, then that would be more interesting to me. -tony

In article <4C51A9D3.9030808 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> writes: So what do curators do about this sort of thing? Do they just let it yellow? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 12:55 PM, Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote: The yellowing isn't necessarily being caused by exposure to UV as stated. It's a breakdown of the flame retardent in the plastics over time, which is designed to disburse the bromine throughout the plastic instead of releasing it in the air, which is what causes the yellowing and bromine: http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Flame+Retardants People have had yellowing occur in items completely out of sunlight in a dark basement. UV light is actually part of the solution for rebonding it by exciting the bromine and getting it to seek out oxygen atoms again, thusly rebonding. http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Ultra+Violet+Energy You provide the the oxygen through the Oxy along with the needed hydrogen for bonding from hydgrogen peroxide, hence the entire process. http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Catalyst And really, the light coat of satin acrylic lacquer you spray on it after to seal it can also be found in UV protectant versions to help with future degradation if you plan on having it around UV sources as well. Marty

I would think just keep it in a climate controlled space, block extreme UV sources with a filter, and don't store the machines in the same air space as your household petrochemicals. but as someone said, it has happened in a dark basement, presence of petrochemicals unknown, but I have had experience with HPS light accelerating this rapidly. and as I said, I am no expert, so anything I say should be backed up by your own or others research... On 7/30/10, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:

Ideally, in a dark inert gas environment. Obviously impractical, except for time capsules. UV filters and low light levels are standard in museum settings. I do not know if many people on this list have ever set foot in an real art museum, but there is a reason they have few windows and are kept pretty dark. At first, the darkness might be annoying, but the human eye is pretty amazing and quickly adapts. -- Will

Sridhar Ayengar wrote: You mean the new car smell. :)

I would think a vacuum would be a very bad idea. Plenty of things will outgass (and thus change their properties) in a moderate vacuum. -tony

I've also found, but never used, "retrobrite 3%"(can't remember the link, but a google search should bring it up), which uses standard off-the-shelf stabilized 3% hydrogen peroxide, compared to the near full strength counterparts. it seems this also has less risk of bloom...maybe less is more? On 7/29/10, joe lobocki <jlobocki at gmail.com> wrote:

On 7/30/2010 12:38 AM, Richard wrote: Restoration is very controversial. It is now coming to be accepted that some old works have been "preserved" to death, and are actually in a state they evolved to in the hundred to two hundred years after their origin. I have seen a lot about both oils which are overcoated with clearcoats, and the clearcoats have been removed and restored w/o any active work on the work underneath, as well as working on the coatings w/o removing them. With fresco's, such as the Sistine Chapel the Vatican finally decided that the lighting had put so much soot onto the ceiling that they had nothing to lose from stripping and fully restoring the works. The new and improved "bright" version is now on display, but disputed as to whether it went too far. The general feeling is that furniture if the finish is not destroyed is best left as near as possible to the work of the master, and that is w/o any major refinish. I have seen some valuable tables and other bits that were simply crap that were totally black, and in that case, you pretty much have nothing anyway, so a total refinish is about all you can do even if the finish is the original. You have to have the luck or fortune to have a furniture piece which survived in good shape as well before having the debate over what to do with the finish. Same goes for firearms, which have similar factors in their value. Ordinary treatment by competent means is good, but a major cleaning which removes metal, or tries to obscure or remove wear, and refinish generally reduces a weapon's value by 1/2 to as much as to 1/10th the value of one that is not touched. Again if you have a rusting hulk then make it shine, you probably don't have much to lose, unless you have provenance as to the artifact having documented value. E.G. if you dig up a dagger or rifle at the Jamestown digs, probably leave it as you found it. Also note in those circumstance as Al pointed out the need to to study it as an artifact is in play. If you don't have the above, I'd be tempted to try to clean it up, if for instance you found a firearm in an old barn on your grandfathers property, and it was badly damaged by being in a leak, etc. In that case no museum will ever care, and there is no point for you to store a rusting piece of crap for your family. I am involved in two donation processes, both to museums. In the one case, the machine is to be restored as a condition of its donation. In the other the donation is to be for display purposes, and the consideration is to donate an artifact that can be displayed with sufficient parts to restore it to functionality at a later "off exhibit" time. That way it can be put out and the case, panel, etc. can be touched (heaven forbid) and there will be a separate unit that is off display that will never be seen by the public. In this case there is the luxury of having many examples to choose from. I am a "hoarder" as accused by Al K, but I hope that my collections go to a place other than being recycled by my family, or estate, and plans are in place to ensure that. I am also interested in this donation and possible other de-aquisitions now to other than people who want to dump them on ebay for a quick buck. I have not done much of that, but it is something to consider. In that case, I try to make sure that I don't power on, or otherwise try to do anything with a collectible and leave it to the last possible person acquiring it, hopefully with the need or expertise to restore it. I can probably attack one or two "classic" machines with confidence and am not going to try to turn on and run everything I have.

Cameron Kaiser wrote: I guess that makes you easy to find ... But I suspect the problem will allays be cosmetic vs working restoration. Ben

On 7/30/2010 9:07 AM, Richard wrote: I think that would be wonderful, but hopefully not from one of a kind specimens. As I said I want to make one of my donations for "lookie-feely" and one for actual research, etc. I don't think that is feasible for a full sized minicomputer. For terminals which are stable and restored, it would be. I assume you are talking a private setting as well, since open public displays that museums have to put on simply can't filter the spectators to be sure they won't do stupid things. Kids being dragged screaming thru an "exploratorium" kicking and screaming must be dealt with mixed in with the ones who will appreciate what you are presenting in your setting.

I am not a curator, but have been deeply involved with some startup "museums". One of the top ten rules is to *not* take every bit of hardware you are offered. You will drown in it sooner than later. -- Will

----- Original Message ----- From: "Evan Koblentz" <evan at snarc.net> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, July 31, 2010 1:28 PM Subject: Re: drifting from retrobrite - can I make it a museum discussion Museums should specialize more, maybe specific companies or year range.Then they can build up a collection with all the models and rarities without having to pass on anything special.

In article <AANLkTikC39131GtBLEF5UZKp9mOk-eeinpseBZtiB7Fp at mail.gmail.com>, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes: Having been a collector of stamps and comic books previously, I guess I already learned the "focus" lesson before I started on computers :-). For computers I focus on serial terminals and graphics gear. There are times when I go to places that are loaded with vintage gear and I keep an eye out for stuff I think others might be interested in, but that have no interest to me. While my focus is graphics and serial/X terminals, there's a point where serial terminals are essentially all the same. They keyboards have become standardized. The functions are all virtually identical. The enclosures lose any sense of differentiation as they all become just large enough to hold the tube and a small amount of high density electronics. I don't have any Wyse terminals in my collection because of this. I've stayed away from teletypes mostly due to the combined issues of weight, cost and availability. If a number of teletypes could be easily had, I would accept those into the collection and call myself "good" as far as teletypes are concerned. A few models would demonstrate the concept without me having to become a teletype collector. There are other museums that specialize in that. However, a few examples for the right price and availability would be fine. Similarly, most minicomputers and microcomputers don't fit well into my collection, even though most micros have some sort of graphics. If I started collecting every micro that had "graphics", then I'd have to collect virtually all of them. There are plenty of people with large micro collections and that's not the focus of what I'm trying to do. So, Apple ][, Atari 800 and C=64, sure if they're free/cheap. They are enough to represent that class of graphics and are the common examples with which people are likely to have had first-hand experience. There's plenty of important graphics gear to fill the collection anyway. No need to get distracted by micros, commodity terminals and other things. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

From: Randy Dawson Sent: Saturday, July 31, 2010 12:59 AM The American Association of Museums has a great deal of material available for free (as well as a huge lot more for paying members, but what you're looking for is in the free stuff). The specific page to start with is http://www.aam-us.org/aboutmuseums/ I encourage you to look over the documents there to get an idea of what you need to do to get started. I also encourage you to look into the possibility of a certificate program or the like in museum studies in your area. (The University of Washington has one, for example, which is roughly half the course work for the M. A. program.) It's not necessary for everyone involved in the project to go through such a program, but it's very helpful if at least one person does. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

On 7/31/2010 1:41 PM, Tony Duell wrote: simply put, I'd like to have the machines available for those who might want to examine them in 50 years or so, and the parts are really really not available to address repair, and having them blown up now isn't such a good idea. Anything one owns, you can run, back over with a truck, whatever, but eventually it will fail and be useless. One of a kind items without hope of finding parts run now will have zero hope of ever being carefully restored and run at any point in the future if you run it now and burn it up. And no matter how wonderful these things are we have to collect, if you have one or two of the more common items that function, do you really have to have 50 or 100 that function and are at risk of loss to failure? I'm content to have a few units that I run I can eventually disperse or pass on to someone with at least some hope they can run them. I think in your case, you are capable of fixing things that I'd consider toast, and that is something I applaud. However I don't want to have to go to what I perceive to be the lengths you do to repair my collections' bits when they might fail. Jim

I really don't see the point in owning or presrving a machine if you never operate it. Sure you don't let j-random-plubinc lose on it, but surely you'd run it yourself or let other clueful people hace a go. I have been lent some fairly rare machines (<20 know to exist) with the lender knowing I am going to take them apart. As he said 'I have them for educatiunal reasons, and you want to use them for learning'. (And yes, I did put them back together again, working...) -tony

Filters help. And general low light (think art museums). -- Will

On 7/29/10 9:47 AM, Richard wrote: Traditionally conservators, not curators, do this sort of work on artifacts. Museum practice is to minimize any changes to the condition, since any alteration will change it's usefulness to future researchers. For the classic example, Google "Napoleon's Buttons" Normal cleaning is limited to distilled water and non-corrosive soaps. This is also the reason artifacts are handled with gloves. We have several pieces in the collection that have fingerprints permanently etched into the metal from handling.

On 7/29/10 11:39 AM, Richard wrote: Doron Swade, "Napoleon's Waistcoat Button: Modern Artifacts and Museum Culture," Museum Collecting Policies in Modern Science and Technology (London, 1991) Exactly as an object in the museum's permanent collection as far as preservation practices. We would not bleach an object we didn't own, for example. I think you are the first person to ever ask us this. The issue would only come up if the objects were offered for donation or loan. If an object has been repainted or bleached, we'd have to have a pretty strong case presented for adding it to our permanent collection. It depends on the goals of the museum. If they want to show running iron, you'll have to replace things that fail. The PDP-1 project at CHM is the one we use as an example of best practices for restoring and maintaining a running artifact. Other projects here have been less successful.

From: Dave McGuire Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 2:12 PM On 7/29/10 4:59 PM, Al Kossow wrote: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It's going to be a judgment call. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That would be your "pretty strong case", right there. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

In article <950D3ABE99014D1E816F950876013A09 at dell8300>, "Teo Zenios" <teoz at neo.rr.com> writes: Ah, but the whole case for retr0brite is that it brings the object more into its original state (before UV dingification). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

On 7/29/10 2:11 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: I just had a discussion with another curator about what we've been talking about here. The short answer is the world changes after a machine ends its 'useful life'. You have no control over what was done while an example of material culture is being used. Once it becomes an EXAMPLE of what the tool, etc. WAS, you have to think of the object differently. What you are trying to preserve is rarely new, you WANT to save its provenance, warts and all. -- Using a car analogy, some possibilities are: 1) it is new 2) you make it appear to be new (repaint, NOS parts, etc.) 3) you preserve as much of the original as possible (basic object conservation) So, what we have been talking about about is case 2 If you are an average collector you want 2 to be as close to 1 as possible, since it increases its perceived 'value'. Museums, with the goal of preservation of an artifact as an example of the times that they were used, stay around 3)

On 7/29/10 6:03 PM, Al Kossow wrote: Understood, thanks for your input! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On 7/30/2010 2:34 PM, Tony Duell wrote: I feel sort-of the same way. I haven't tried retr0brite yet, but I certainly will on my most yellowed machine. I say this because I want people to experience the machine as it was originally produced, and a two-tone badly yellowed case was *not* how it originally looked. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

I think my last girlfriend said something like that. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip? To get to the other ... uh ...

I beleive he is involved with the Science Musuem in London (or was when that paper was written). All I will say is that given the current state of that museum, I wouldn't necessarily agree with everything he says. I would hope you would do nothing to a loaned artefact without the owner's permision. I feel ethat in many cases the conservation policies are too strict. In many ways they treat technical artefacts in the same way as pieces of fine art, not reallsing the important difference (to me, anyway) that in the latter case the appearances in very important -- the purpose of fine art is to be looked at, -- whereas in the former case, the artefact was designed to do something. Hence, I feel that machines (in general, not just computeers) sghould be got into a running state if at all possible, in a way that doesn't alter them more than nevessary, and which certainly doesnt' cahnge the fundamental design (that includes not replacing linear PSUs with switchers, BTW)> -tony

Martin Goldberg wrote: Interesting - if they're advocating that as a fix, then what's the point; may as well just hit the thing with a can of spray-paint and be done with it, surely?