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Right now, I don’t see how a general purpose computer could last 50 years. The article refers to it being modular, but you’d have to replace so many parts… woul

by nynx 5y ago

Right now, I don’t see how a general purpose computer could last 50 years. The article refers to it being modular, but you’d have to replace so many parts… would it still be the same computer?

ecliptik 5y ago
The MNT Reform [1] is an attempt at this. All parts replaceable and upgradable, with full schematics and design docs available when possible. I can’t find the exact quote, but the SoC and batteries were chosen because they are expected to still be manufactured 30 years out. Obvious drawbacks are compared to other laptops it’s under powered, bulky, and expensive, but as one review pointed out, “This is the laptop you'll need when the asteroid hits” [2]. 1. https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2020-01-18-finishing-reform.html https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2020-01-18-finishing-refor... 2. https://www.inputmag.com/tech/this-is-the-laptop-youll-need-when-the-meteor-hits https://www.inputmag.com/tech/this-is-the-laptop-youll-need-...
- foxfluff 5y ago
  NXP claims 15 years of longevity for their i.MX8 family. That's not bad, although I don't know what it means in practice (there are many chips that are effectively obsolete but you could still buy them as long as your order quantity is in the tens of thousands at least). I would not expect the SoC to be available in 30 years, but it's impossible to say for sure. Of course, for the SoM you need other parts as well (LPDDR4).
  - jogu 5y ago
    I'm certainly not an expert on hardware but this statement from the crowdsupply page piqued my curiosity: > The SoM plugs into the Reform motherboard’s central 200-pin SO-DIMM connector. This means that anyone will be able to design a replacement SoM to power Reform with a completely different CPU or an FPGA, for example. So long as you can produce a pin compatible board, the exact details of that board actually don't seem to matter. My first thought when I saw this was "I wonder if you could create a conversion board for CM4 modules" and sure enough the creator of the laptop is working on exactly that: https://twitter.com/mntmn/status/1462833241933627400 https://twitter.com/mntmn/status/1462833241933627400 If they can actually pull off a CM4 compatibility board, I'd be super compelled to buy one knowing there's a growing ecosystem of compatible SoMs.
zuminator 5y ago
Chip of Theseus?
- evjan 5y ago
  Underrated comment!
YEwSdObPQT 5y ago
I have an Amiga 1200 that is about 25 years old. With some expansions over the years I can do most stuff that I've been doing daily since the mid 90s. Replacement caps, accelerator board and a scan doubler for modern-ish displays (DVI / VGA work fine). I also own a Core 2 Quad with maxed ram (8gb) that is about 15 years old and it can handle a modern Linux distro quite well. I've added USB 3.0, card readers and I bought a cheap AMD workstation GPU and stuff works ok. If the hardware doesn't fail it probably be okay for another 10 years. If I ran a BSD on there it would last longer. What normally causes me to upgrade machines are new games and/or heavy weight software stacks and IDEs that eat ram and CPU time.

by nynx 5y ago

Right now, I don’t see how a general purpose computer could last 50 years. The article refers to it being modular, but you’d have to replace so many parts… would it still be the same computer?

ecliptik 5y ago

The MNT Reform [1] is an attempt at this. All parts replaceable and upgradable, with full schematics and design docs available when possible. I can’t find the exact quote, but the SoC and batteries were chosen because they are expected to still be manufactured 30 years out. Obvious drawbacks are compared to other laptops it’s under powered, bulky, and expensive, but as one review pointed out, “This is the laptop you'll need when the asteroid hits” [2]. 1. https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2020-01-18-finishing-reform.html https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2020-01-18-finishing-refor... 2. https://www.inputmag.com/tech/this-is-the-laptop-youll-need-when-the-meteor-hits https://www.inputmag.com/tech/this-is-the-laptop-youll-need-...

foxfluff 5y ago
NXP claims 15 years of longevity for their i.MX8 family. That's not bad, although I don't know what it means in practice (there are many chips that are effectively obsolete but you could still buy them as long as your order quantity is in the tens of thousands at least). I would not expect the SoC to be available in 30 years, but it's impossible to say for sure. Of course, for the SoM you need other parts as well (LPDDR4).
- jogu 5y ago
  I'm certainly not an expert on hardware but this statement from the crowdsupply page piqued my curiosity: > The SoM plugs into the Reform motherboard’s central 200-pin SO-DIMM connector. This means that anyone will be able to design a replacement SoM to power Reform with a completely different CPU or an FPGA, for example. So long as you can produce a pin compatible board, the exact details of that board actually don't seem to matter. My first thought when I saw this was "I wonder if you could create a conversion board for CM4 modules" and sure enough the creator of the laptop is working on exactly that: https://twitter.com/mntmn/status/1462833241933627400 https://twitter.com/mntmn/status/1462833241933627400 If they can actually pull off a CM4 compatibility board, I'd be super compelled to buy one knowing there's a growing ecosystem of compatible SoMs.

zuminator 5y ago

Chip of Theseus?

evjan 5y ago
Underrated comment!

YEwSdObPQT 5y ago

I have an Amiga 1200 that is about 25 years old. With some expansions over the years I can do most stuff that I've been doing daily since the mid 90s. Replacement caps, accelerator board and a scan doubler for modern-ish displays (DVI / VGA work fine). I also own a Core 2 Quad with maxed ram (8gb) that is about 15 years old and it can handle a modern Linux distro quite well. I've added USB 3.0, card readers and I bought a cheap AMD workstation GPU and stuff works ok. If the hardware doesn't fail it probably be okay for another 10 years. If I ran a BSD on there it would last longer. What normally causes me to upgrade machines are new games and/or heavy weight software stacks and IDEs that eat ram and CPU time.