5 ms·

The major problem I see with this is that while the computer itself might still boot, the world around it will have changed so radically it will effectively be

The major problem I see with this is that while the computer itself might still boot, the world around it will have changed so radically it will effectively be useless. You can see this with machines much younger than 50 years, they can't support the encryption required by most modern websites, interfaces age out of regular use: used a 24 pin parallel port lately? How about a modem? Even software with long support for ancient machines eventually find it impossible to support older hardware, so you would be stuck with whatever the last release of software was available and likely any vendor would be long dead. Machines don't age out because they stop working, they simply become obsolete to the surrounding environment. The article glosses over this problem by saying you could stick to simple use cases like email or word processing, but if you can't transfer the data off the machine, you are boned.

adrianN 5y ago
A project like this would be interesting for a computer that controls some other long lived thing, like an industrial control computer. There is an awful number of old beige boxes running Windows 95 controlling some very expensive machinery. The lack of software updates is not a problem (until somebody tries to introduce IIoT...), but finding replacement parts can become quite difficult.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  There is a small business near me that has a wool testing machine that absolutely relies on custom DOS 3.3 based software and an old school serial card. They have had to become very astute at picking up old parts to keep their old rigs running as the guy who wrote the control software passed on, and they don't want to invest money in rewriting it. You would think commodity hardware would run this setup but all attempts at shifting it have failed. The problem with old electronics is that once the chips fall out of fashion, you are never getting replacement parts. Does anybody still manufacture DDR2 ram for example? Its just not that long ago it got replaced by DDR3 and DDR4 but in 10 short years if you need a couple of sticks of it, your only option is 2nd hand. The e-waste issue is very real and the relentless pace of change doesn't help, but I don't have a good answer for solving it.
  - salamandersauce 5y ago
    Amazon still shows as DDR2 being available from brands such as Tecmiyo and Kuesuny. With prime shipping even. You can even get DDR1 still. Now whether it's new memory or just recycled memory that's been repackaged I have no idea.
    - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
      It sure looks like new. I recently ordered some DDR2 for a printer's mainboard.
  - boznz 5y ago
    If it transfers data through serial it is generally pretty easy to capture the traffic and reverse engineer, two of my jobs have been projects exactly like this. Only on one occasion have I had to replace the control electronics in the machine where the 8755 ROM/IO chip had failed and the program data was lost
- dusted 5y ago
  not too long ago I did a flux image of a floppy, that floppy was required to boot a perfectly good cnc machine, and if it died, the machine would need its computer replaced (read: need to be replaced itself), the floppy drive was then replaced by a floppy emulator with a USB stick, and the guy now has two backups. It was not too early either, the first tracks of that floppy were visibly worn...
harryvederci 5y ago
Good point. Maybe this ForeverComputer could get a swappable component that does the connecting and encrypting? Kinda like you can SSH into a supercomputer from a Raspberry Pi and pretend your Pi itself has all that power.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Well yeah, but like a lot of retro computers that have a Pi emulating a modem or a disk drive as a net gateway, you might as well just use the Pi. People do it for fun or for the challenge, which is awesome. I don't think anybody on a gateway sitting at their C64 pretends that its viable. I do love reading about that stuff though.
dusted 5y ago
I got to say you're spot on. Keeping things working is no challenge looks at his commodores. Keeping them relevant is more of a challenge, this is one reason I hate to see people forcing redirects to HTTPS, it's just great and dandy that modern browsers suggest this to users (as long as they don't force), but for vast vast amounts of information, in the free world, you shouldn't force people into always-encrypted. There is zero good reason I shouldn't be able to choose to read Wikipedia unencrypted. And I can do that on pretty much any machine that can somehow crawl onto the Internet. There's also the problem of "easily replaceable parts", because parts stop being produced, and I think we've been in a golden-age of new-old-stock, and I don't see that continuing in the future. Easily replaceable pose two problems, first, is sourcing the actual part as the world moves on and production stops, the other is that easily replaceable is at odds with industry demand, sure, I personally like 40 pin dip sockets for my hobby electronics, because they're easy to solder, things are large enough I can see them! But I'd not want every appliance I own to be constrained by that, meaning there's no incentive to produce them, leading back to the first problem. There are so many problems with how to build a machine that lasts, or, even how to build an architecture, or system, that lasts, but they are worthwhile pursuits, discussing and thinking about them is worthwhile, because, systems we can understand, own and service are inherently more valuable than the ones we cannot.
- Jaxan 5y ago
  There is a reason to read Wikipedia via https: ISP can otherwise inject ads or even change the page. This has actually happened.
  - dusted 5y ago
    That's not a good reason to take away my choice, and rob me of the opportunity to access this information on an older device if I wanted to.
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      Proxies like WeBone can solve that. https://github.com/atauenis/webone https://github.com/atauenis/webone I use it for a solaris install. https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/2021/10/hacker-news-in-hotjavatm-for-solaris.html https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/2021/10/hacker-news-in-hotj...
inc 5y ago
I'm working on building computers designed to last longer than 50 years. They are primarily for the sort of timeless applications mentioned in the article. It's hard to imagine what people will be doing 50 years in the future, but it's not so difficult to see what people were doing 50 years ago that they're still doing today. Transferring data off the computers won't be a problem in the future, if people are still interested there will be adapters and interface modules available, or you can make your own because of the open-source hardware, software and documentation. The software won't need to be updated because it won't need to run the latest version of everything. There will be some advantages to using simpler and less capable computers for certain tasks, but most people will still need a modern computer for doing things like paying taxes and viewing advertisements.

adrianN 5y ago

A project like this would be interesting for a computer that controls some other long lived thing, like an industrial control computer. There is an awful number of old beige boxes running Windows 95 controlling some very expensive machinery. The lack of software updates is not a problem (until somebody tries to introduce IIoT...), but finding replacement parts can become quite difficult.

smackeyacky 5y ago
There is a small business near me that has a wool testing machine that absolutely relies on custom DOS 3.3 based software and an old school serial card. They have had to become very astute at picking up old parts to keep their old rigs running as the guy who wrote the control software passed on, and they don't want to invest money in rewriting it. You would think commodity hardware would run this setup but all attempts at shifting it have failed. The problem with old electronics is that once the chips fall out of fashion, you are never getting replacement parts. Does anybody still manufacture DDR2 ram for example? Its just not that long ago it got replaced by DDR3 and DDR4 but in 10 short years if you need a couple of sticks of it, your only option is 2nd hand. The e-waste issue is very real and the relentless pace of change doesn't help, but I don't have a good answer for solving it.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Amazon still shows as DDR2 being available from brands such as Tecmiyo and Kuesuny. With prime shipping even. You can even get DDR1 still. Now whether it's new memory or just recycled memory that's been repackaged I have no idea.
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    It sure looks like new. I recently ordered some DDR2 for a printer's mainboard.
- boznz 5y ago
  If it transfers data through serial it is generally pretty easy to capture the traffic and reverse engineer, two of my jobs have been projects exactly like this. Only on one occasion have I had to replace the control electronics in the machine where the 8755 ROM/IO chip had failed and the program data was lost
dusted 5y ago
not too long ago I did a flux image of a floppy, that floppy was required to boot a perfectly good cnc machine, and if it died, the machine would need its computer replaced (read: need to be replaced itself), the floppy drive was then replaced by a floppy emulator with a USB stick, and the guy now has two backups. It was not too early either, the first tracks of that floppy were visibly worn...

harryvederci 5y ago

Good point. Maybe this ForeverComputer could get a swappable component that does the connecting and encrypting? Kinda like you can SSH into a supercomputer from a Raspberry Pi and pretend your Pi itself has all that power.

smackeyacky 5y ago
Well yeah, but like a lot of retro computers that have a Pi emulating a modem or a disk drive as a net gateway, you might as well just use the Pi. People do it for fun or for the challenge, which is awesome. I don't think anybody on a gateway sitting at their C64 pretends that its viable. I do love reading about that stuff though.

dusted 5y ago

I got to say you're spot on. Keeping things working is no challenge looks at his commodores. Keeping them relevant is more of a challenge, this is one reason I hate to see people forcing redirects to HTTPS, it's just great and dandy that modern browsers suggest this to users (as long as they don't force), but for vast vast amounts of information, in the free world, you shouldn't force people into always-encrypted. There is zero good reason I shouldn't be able to choose to read Wikipedia unencrypted. And I can do that on pretty much any machine that can somehow crawl onto the Internet. There's also the problem of "easily replaceable parts", because parts stop being produced, and I think we've been in a golden-age of new-old-stock, and I don't see that continuing in the future. Easily replaceable pose two problems, first, is sourcing the actual part as the world moves on and production stops, the other is that easily replaceable is at odds with industry demand, sure, I personally like 40 pin dip sockets for my hobby electronics, because they're easy to solder, things are large enough I can see them! But I'd not want every appliance I own to be constrained by that, meaning there's no incentive to produce them, leading back to the first problem. There are so many problems with how to build a machine that lasts, or, even how to build an architecture, or system, that lasts, but they are worthwhile pursuits, discussing and thinking about them is worthwhile, because, systems we can understand, own and service are inherently more valuable than the ones we cannot.

Jaxan 5y ago
There is a reason to read Wikipedia via https: ISP can otherwise inject ads or even change the page. This has actually happened.
- dusted 5y ago
  That's not a good reason to take away my choice, and rob me of the opportunity to access this information on an older device if I wanted to.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    Proxies like WeBone can solve that. https://github.com/atauenis/webone https://github.com/atauenis/webone I use it for a solaris install. https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/2021/10/hacker-news-in-hotjavatm-for-solaris.html https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/2021/10/hacker-news-in-hotj...

inc 5y ago

I'm working on building computers designed to last longer than 50 years. They are primarily for the sort of timeless applications mentioned in the article. It's hard to imagine what people will be doing 50 years in the future, but it's not so difficult to see what people were doing 50 years ago that they're still doing today. Transferring data off the computers won't be a problem in the future, if people are still interested there will be adapters and interface modules available, or you can make your own because of the open-source hardware, software and documentation. The software won't need to be updated because it won't need to run the latest version of everything. There will be some advantages to using simpler and less capable computers for certain tasks, but most people will still need a modern computer for doing things like paying taxes and viewing advertisements.