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> My wife types my work on a Royal standard typewriter bought new in 1956 and as good now as it was then. This was written in the late 80s, but I'd guess they'

> My wife types my work on a Royal standard typewriter bought new in 1956 and as good now as it was then. This was written in the late 80s, but I'd guess they're still using that typewriter over 60 years after it's purchase. Not saying I completely agree with his whole essay, but there's not a lot of computing equipment still in use (or considered usable) from that era. > But the cost would not be just mone- tary. It is well understood that technological innovation always requires the discarding of the "old model" He's not wrong. Just try to go dig up an old laptop from ~20 years ago that you might have laying around somewhere. Yes, it might work (after you replace the battery), but can you transfer files to/from it now if it didn't have USB ports then? Or if it didn't have the current USB port that all your current devices use? Floppies were ubiquitous in the 90s, but try reading one now - it's not impossible, but you'll probably have to find some service to help you do that since it's not likely that you've had a floppy drive for close to 20 years. As an example, I'd like to get an e-reader that would be usable in 20+ years. But that doesn't seem likely. The batteries aren't easy to change in most of these devices anymore and they'll likely fail long before that. Many of them use android and when support for your device is over... you could probably use it for a while, but eventually it's going to be difficult. All that to say that Mr. Berry's choice doesn't seem all that crazy to me.

goosedragons 4y ago
Most eReaders use Linux. Kobo still provides software updates for models reaching all the way back to 2011. For something like an English novel Epub 3 is backwards compatible enough that it'll still work fine enough even on something like a Sony PRS-505 that only does Epub 2. And there's loads of tools like Calibre to back convert files if need be. Really the battery is the only problem but some models do still have 3rd party replacements available.
- stanski 4y ago
  "All the way back to 2011" made me chuckle. Practically ancient times!
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Until Kobo develop their Tardis, 2011 is a reasonable earliest support date. The Kobo eReader was first introduced in May, 2010. And 11 years' support is much better than that of other mobile device manufacturers. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/03/24/kobo-ebook-reader-indigo.html http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/03/24/kobo-ebook-rea... Via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobo_eReader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobo_eReader
    - stanski 4y ago
      I agree it's much better than other manufacturers. And therein lies the problem!
deanCommie 4y ago
> there's not a lot of computing equipment still in use (or considered usable) from that era. George R R Martin works in Wordstar 4.0 from 1987: https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin-uses-dos-wordstar-to-write https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin...
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  I suppose that's why he never finishes anything.
  - drivers99 4y ago
    I always wondered why people always say that. Why would using a new word processor make anyone write faster?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ghaff 4y ago
I probably still have a USB 3 1/2" drive somewhere but not sure sure how many old drives I could read. And certainly would have to build a system that could read a 5 1/4" drive and there are various other old formats where reading would be a major project.
horsawlarway 4y ago
> Floppies were ubiquitous in the 90s, but try reading one now - it's not impossible, but you'll probably have to find some service to help you do that since it's not likely that you've had a floppy drive for close to 20 years. This is a bit rose-tinted. You can pick from a huge variety of floppy drive readers available on amazon, most for less than 20 bucks. Additionally - >As an example, I'd like to get an e-reader that would be usable in 20+ years. But that doesn't seem likely. I have a kindle gen 2, purchased basically as soon as that model was released in jan 2009 (I actually ordered a gen 1 and amazon bumped me to gen 2 when it was announced). It's still going strong. My guess is that basically any kindle will go about 20 years as long as you take care of it. Battery life degrades a good bit, but even at only 20% of the original capacity, the thing still goes 3 days without a charge - used to be a month, but three days is enough.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > This is a bit rose-tinted. You can pick from a huge variety of floppy drive readers available on amazon, most for less than 20 bucks. Back to 3.5" / 1440kb is not too bad. Though the new drives are kinda crap compared to old ones in reading many disks. But going back a little further-- reading Mac 800k disks, or 5.25" floppies, or things that are not DOS formatted--- gets harder and harder.
  - codazoda 4y ago
    Just a little farther back, however, and things ease again to audio tape technology. I’m still able to use my TRS-80 CoCo today because it used audio. I’ve adapted a cable to my digital audio recorder. It was built in about 1984 and it still works. It’s rather difficult to use compared to modern computers though.
    - UncleOxidant 4y ago
      Your 1984 self had nothing else to compare it to - your current self has had several computers since to compare it to to make the determination that "It’s rather difficult to use compared to modern computers though." This is part of Berry's argument as well: once you jump on the tech treadmill it's hard to get off.
WWLink 4y ago
A laptop from 20 years ago would almost certainly have USB ports. The first computer I saw them on was a Sony VAIO in 1997. Compaq was also sporting them at the time, and of course Apple heavily adopted them in 1998. By 2000, practically every computer had them. Yes a USB stick should work with those. USB floppy drives can still be purchased, and will generally work with anything, including android phones lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT1l8Dcjb1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT1l8Dcjb1Y
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  It would also have had an ethernet port, quite probably a modem port, and possibly parallel and/or serial ports. Perhaps a PCMCIA slot as well. It's possible to establish file transfer and networking over any of these. I bootstrapped one installation, on an early 1990s laptop, using a null-modem cable and at zmodem transfers by pasting DEB archives and tarballs into Minicom. Once I had enough built up, I could set up first SLIP (at 57 kbps), and later PLIP networking, natted through my desktop. That box served as a firewall for a few years until it finally fried.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  Interesting. At 1.4 Million views, I wonder how much revenue the poster made by stretching the video out to to 12 minutes by adding so much filler when it could have just been 2 minutes long. I wonder how many manhours in total of people's lives that content-producer destroyed for a few extra bucks. (Over 31 manyears wasted watching that video, what a shame. That's longer than some people live.)
jedberg 4y ago
You could use TCP/IP on Windows computers in 1994, nearly 30 years ago. You could still use that same 10baseT ethernet card that was most likely in it and use a modern Cat6e cable to connect it to a modern 1 gig switch. So you wouldn't even have to mess with floppy drives if you could get the software for networking. You could just upload it.
Hellbanevil 4y ago
windowsrookie 4y ago
I recently purchased a couple of old PowerBook G4's (the last models from 2005, so 17 years old) There is a community still making new software for these old PPC Macs, and a custom version of MacOS with modern updates including security patches was just released. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sorbet-leopard-your-power-mac-unleashed-revision-1-5-released.2300924/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sorbet-leopard-your-pow... They have USB 2.0, so transferring files is no issue. They have Dual-Layer DVD drives, not floppies. I brought the PowerBook with me to a hotel and was able to connect to their still active 802.11g Wifi. It browses sites like hacker news almost as well as a modern laptop. Although, Javascript brings it to a crawl. It can still edit video in Final Cut, make music in Logic 9, and play games like Halo 1. Honestly any highly specced laptop made with a Core 2 Duo and up (so ~15 years old or newer) is still usable today.
wheybags 4y ago
Tech moved incredibly fast for a while there, so a computer from 20 years ago is kinda useless. A computer from 10 years ago is not though. And if you think of a computer from the 90s in 2010, that would be useless. As the pace of development slows down, the useful lifecycle of computers will increase (I hope)
- danuker 4y ago
  If you use Vim or Emacs on a small OS, you can code on some really old hardware. What usually tests my patience is the lack of an SSD.

goosedragons 4y ago

Most eReaders use Linux. Kobo still provides software updates for models reaching all the way back to 2011. For something like an English novel Epub 3 is backwards compatible enough that it'll still work fine enough even on something like a Sony PRS-505 that only does Epub 2. And there's loads of tools like Calibre to back convert files if need be. Really the battery is the only problem but some models do still have 3rd party replacements available.

stanski 4y ago
"All the way back to 2011" made me chuckle. Practically ancient times!
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Until Kobo develop their Tardis, 2011 is a reasonable earliest support date. The Kobo eReader was first introduced in May, 2010. And 11 years' support is much better than that of other mobile device manufacturers. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/03/24/kobo-ebook-reader-indigo.html http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/03/24/kobo-ebook-rea... Via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobo_eReader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobo_eReader
  - stanski 4y ago
    I agree it's much better than other manufacturers. And therein lies the problem!

deanCommie 4y ago

> there's not a lot of computing equipment still in use (or considered usable) from that era. George R R Martin works in Wordstar 4.0 from 1987: https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin-uses-dos-wordstar-to-write https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin...

formerkrogemp 4y ago
I suppose that's why he never finishes anything.
- drivers99 4y ago
  I always wondered why people always say that. Why would using a new word processor make anyone write faster?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ghaff 4y ago

I probably still have a USB 3 1/2" drive somewhere but not sure sure how many old drives I could read. And certainly would have to build a system that could read a 5 1/4" drive and there are various other old formats where reading would be a major project.

horsawlarway 4y ago

> Floppies were ubiquitous in the 90s, but try reading one now - it's not impossible, but you'll probably have to find some service to help you do that since it's not likely that you've had a floppy drive for close to 20 years. This is a bit rose-tinted. You can pick from a huge variety of floppy drive readers available on amazon, most for less than 20 bucks. Additionally - >As an example, I'd like to get an e-reader that would be usable in 20+ years. But that doesn't seem likely. I have a kindle gen 2, purchased basically as soon as that model was released in jan 2009 (I actually ordered a gen 1 and amazon bumped me to gen 2 when it was announced). It's still going strong. My guess is that basically any kindle will go about 20 years as long as you take care of it. Battery life degrades a good bit, but even at only 20% of the original capacity, the thing still goes 3 days without a charge - used to be a month, but three days is enough.

mlyle 4y ago
> This is a bit rose-tinted. You can pick from a huge variety of floppy drive readers available on amazon, most for less than 20 bucks. Back to 3.5" / 1440kb is not too bad. Though the new drives are kinda crap compared to old ones in reading many disks. But going back a little further-- reading Mac 800k disks, or 5.25" floppies, or things that are not DOS formatted--- gets harder and harder.
- codazoda 4y ago
  Just a little farther back, however, and things ease again to audio tape technology. I’m still able to use my TRS-80 CoCo today because it used audio. I’ve adapted a cable to my digital audio recorder. It was built in about 1984 and it still works. It’s rather difficult to use compared to modern computers though.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    Your 1984 self had nothing else to compare it to - your current self has had several computers since to compare it to to make the determination that "It’s rather difficult to use compared to modern computers though." This is part of Berry's argument as well: once you jump on the tech treadmill it's hard to get off.

WWLink 4y ago

A laptop from 20 years ago would almost certainly have USB ports. The first computer I saw them on was a Sony VAIO in 1997. Compaq was also sporting them at the time, and of course Apple heavily adopted them in 1998. By 2000, practically every computer had them. Yes a USB stick should work with those. USB floppy drives can still be purchased, and will generally work with anything, including android phones lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT1l8Dcjb1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT1l8Dcjb1Y

dredmorbius 4y ago
It would also have had an ethernet port, quite probably a modem port, and possibly parallel and/or serial ports. Perhaps a PCMCIA slot as well. It's possible to establish file transfer and networking over any of these. I bootstrapped one installation, on an early 1990s laptop, using a null-modem cable and at zmodem transfers by pasting DEB archives and tarballs into Minicom. Once I had enough built up, I could set up first SLIP (at 57 kbps), and later PLIP networking, natted through my desktop. That box served as a firewall for a few years until it finally fried.
MerelyMortal 4y ago
Interesting. At 1.4 Million views, I wonder how much revenue the poster made by stretching the video out to to 12 minutes by adding so much filler when it could have just been 2 minutes long. I wonder how many manhours in total of people's lives that content-producer destroyed for a few extra bucks. (Over 31 manyears wasted watching that video, what a shame. That's longer than some people live.)

jedberg 4y ago

You could use TCP/IP on Windows computers in 1994, nearly 30 years ago. You could still use that same 10baseT ethernet card that was most likely in it and use a modern Cat6e cable to connect it to a modern 1 gig switch. So you wouldn't even have to mess with floppy drives if you could get the software for networking. You could just upload it.

Hellbanevil 4y ago

windowsrookie 4y ago

I recently purchased a couple of old PowerBook G4's (the last models from 2005, so 17 years old) There is a community still making new software for these old PPC Macs, and a custom version of MacOS with modern updates including security patches was just released. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sorbet-leopard-your-power-mac-unleashed-revision-1-5-released.2300924/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sorbet-leopard-your-pow... They have USB 2.0, so transferring files is no issue. They have Dual-Layer DVD drives, not floppies. I brought the PowerBook with me to a hotel and was able to connect to their still active 802.11g Wifi. It browses sites like hacker news almost as well as a modern laptop. Although, Javascript brings it to a crawl. It can still edit video in Final Cut, make music in Logic 9, and play games like Halo 1. Honestly any highly specced laptop made with a Core 2 Duo and up (so ~15 years old or newer) is still usable today.

wheybags 4y ago

Tech moved incredibly fast for a while there, so a computer from 20 years ago is kinda useless. A computer from 10 years ago is not though. And if you think of a computer from the 90s in 2010, that would be useless. As the pace of development slows down, the useful lifecycle of computers will increase (I hope)

danuker 4y ago
If you use Vim or Emacs on a small OS, you can code on some really old hardware. What usually tests my patience is the lack of an SSD.