[game_preservation] Hardware preservation

[Andrew Armstrong]

  Yeah, there are people from the NMoC already on there (we discussed 
some odd comments on the list before we had our VCF!), but I'll join 
sometime today :)

Andrew

On 04/08/2010 03:35, Martin Goldberg wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 5:47 PM, Andrew Armstrong<andrew at aarmstrong.org>  wrote:

>> I need to get on more mailing lists and forums to keep my ear out about this

>> kind of thing :) I'll join that one when I can find time to sort it and

>> filters out and write some introduction for myself :)

>>

>> Andrew

>>

> Please do, that's pretty much the major discussion list for vintage

> computing.  Personal collectors to museums, old computer industry

> notables, etc.  All over the globe as well, so you may find people

> from you area already on.  Their archive alone is a trove of

> information for wading through.

>

>

> Marty

>

>> On 03/08/2010 20:55, Martin Goldberg wrote:

>>> Thought this might be of interest to some of the list members like

>>> myself that actively preserve hardware as well as software.  There was

>>> an interesting response/post over at the classic computing mailing

>>> list on the subject of sealing up vs. usage of hardware on

>>> preservation:

>>>

>>>

>>> [Why not run a rare classic computer]

>>>

>>>> 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.

>>> There is one problem with this argument. That is that some parts will

>>> fail with age whether you run the machine or not. It's not that you have

>>> X thousand hours of running time which you can use up now, or keep for

>>> 100 years time.

>>>

>>> The decay of plastic parts, rollers, etc is well-known. So is bit-rot in

>>> EPROMs I(and some otehr programmed devices). And ICs will fail with time

>>> even if they are not powered on (althogh I will grant that they will last

>>> a lot longer if not powered on -- mostly...)

>>>

>>> The time to document machines, and work out repair methods is when they

>>> are working, not after htey have failed. A trivial example of this is a

>>> CRT-based monitor. When it is working, IMHO, you should record the CRT

>>> electrode votlages and any other voltages that are meaningful (e.g.

>>> supply lines derrived fro mteh flyback transformer). The point being,

>>> when it fails, you can re-take those votlages and see how they compare.

>>>

>>> And of course the time to make copies of EPROMs, etc, is when the machine

>>> sitll works. If it has fialed, you have no idea whether the data in said

>>> chips is still good.

>>>

>>>

>>>> 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

>>> Actually, for a lot of the rare machines I've come across (and worked

>>> on), most of the parts are still obtainable, some of them very easily

>>> obtainable.

>>>

>>>> 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

>>> Well, if you have 100 fo the same machine, I would agree you don't have

>>> to run them all, But if you have 100 of the same machine, it can hardly

>>> be classed as 'rare'...

>>>

>>> If you have 100  different machines, I could see good reasons for wanting

>>> to run a particualr machine. An Apple 1 is very different to a PERQ2T4,

>>> after all...

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> Marty

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>>> game_preservation at igda.org

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