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There is going to be a huge market in refurbished, older non-computerized machinery and automobiles. With farm and heavy equipment, this tends to be true alrea

by douche 10y ago

There is going to be a huge market in refurbished, older non-computerized machinery and automobiles. With farm and heavy equipment, this tends to be true already, since it is effectively indestructible, as the depreciation is significant, while the costs to replace with a brand-new model is astronomical, and so stuff gets rebuilt, welded up, patched up, and reused until it is completely kaput, often decades after it was built. Automobiles are trickier, especially if you are in an area that gets snow and uses a lot of salt in the winters, since the bodywork rots out quickly, much faster than the expensive mechanical components, like the engine and tranny, wear out.

maxerickson 10y ago
Bodywork got a lot better sometime around 1995. (I live in the vast barren norths of Michigan where roads are constantly salted during the winter months and you don't really see that many rust buckets anymore)
jacquesm 10y ago
Non computerized automobiles are those before fuel injection became common, which dates back to the early 80's. One option would be anything with mechanical diesel injection pumps, but those will at some point be harder to get past emissions inspection. Keeping a car that old on the road is going to be tricky, the engines do wear out at some point and bodies will go faster depending on the climate. Anything from that era will soon be a classic with associated spare parts prices. Tractors from the 1940's still run pretty good though, there's plenty of them and they were built to last.
- taneq 10y ago
  There are different levels of 'computerised', though. An early 90s car with EFI and ABS does have some processors in it, but they're standard modules (so can just plug a new one in if one fails) running from EPROM and have very limited communication. Unless you're worried about it being EMP-proof, that's not really a problem. Modern cars where everything is controlled by a central internet-connected computer are a whole different proposition.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    > Modern cars where everything is controlled by a central internet-connected computer are a whole different proposition. Are cars really built this way? I thought they were still basically a network of devices, for safety reasons.
    - taneq 10y ago
      I believe it's moving more in that direction - reading the teardown of the Toyota code in the unintended acceleration case, that one system seemed to be running a whole bunch of unrelated stuff as well as reading the accelerator pedal. Also witness the numerous reports recently of people being able to affect various critical subsystems (ABS, central locking) wirelessly on modern cars. (I'd be amazed/horrified if ABS wasn't an independent module which talks to the rest of the car, but if you can give it instructions over the wire then it's still vulnerable.)
- userbinator 10y ago
  Anything from that era will soon be a classic with associated spare parts prices. The difference is that the parts are still much simpler in terms of complexity --- and thus ability to be reproduced --- than computerised controllers with their associated software. There are plenty of aftermarket parts for older cars and what isn't available could probably be fabricated easily or replaced with a suitable equivalent. It will be far more difficult to do the same with modern cars, which have many more parts of higher complexity (and often deliberately designed for lock-in --- hence the DMCA.)

by douche 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago

Bodywork got a lot better sometime around 1995. (I live in the vast barren norths of Michigan where roads are constantly salted during the winter months and you don't really see that many rust buckets anymore)

jacquesm 10y ago

Non computerized automobiles are those before fuel injection became common, which dates back to the early 80's. One option would be anything with mechanical diesel injection pumps, but those will at some point be harder to get past emissions inspection. Keeping a car that old on the road is going to be tricky, the engines do wear out at some point and bodies will go faster depending on the climate. Anything from that era will soon be a classic with associated spare parts prices. Tractors from the 1940's still run pretty good though, there's plenty of them and they were built to last.

taneq 10y ago
There are different levels of 'computerised', though. An early 90s car with EFI and ABS does have some processors in it, but they're standard modules (so can just plug a new one in if one fails) running from EPROM and have very limited communication. Unless you're worried about it being EMP-proof, that's not really a problem. Modern cars where everything is controlled by a central internet-connected computer are a whole different proposition.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  > Modern cars where everything is controlled by a central internet-connected computer are a whole different proposition. Are cars really built this way? I thought they were still basically a network of devices, for safety reasons.
  - taneq 10y ago
    I believe it's moving more in that direction - reading the teardown of the Toyota code in the unintended acceleration case, that one system seemed to be running a whole bunch of unrelated stuff as well as reading the accelerator pedal. Also witness the numerous reports recently of people being able to affect various critical subsystems (ABS, central locking) wirelessly on modern cars. (I'd be amazed/horrified if ABS wasn't an independent module which talks to the rest of the car, but if you can give it instructions over the wire then it's still vulnerable.)
userbinator 10y ago
Anything from that era will soon be a classic with associated spare parts prices. The difference is that the parts are still much simpler in terms of complexity --- and thus ability to be reproduced --- than computerised controllers with their associated software. There are plenty of aftermarket parts for older cars and what isn't available could probably be fabricated easily or replaced with a suitable equivalent. It will be far more difficult to do the same with modern cars, which have many more parts of higher complexity (and often deliberately designed for lock-in --- hence the DMCA.)