[HN Gopher] Amiga runs Michigan schools' heating and air conditi...
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Amiga runs Michigan schools' heating and air conditioning systems
(2015)
Author : mtr
Score : 47 points
Date : 2023-08-10 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.woodtv.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.woodtv.com)
| J_McQuade wrote:
| I think I picked up a bootleg of this at a car boot sale in the
| early 2000s. Couldn't get it to work with my EU boiler, but it
| had a great cracktro.
| deadlyllama wrote:
| You could retrofit a more modern computer in there. Probably even
| reverse engineer the radio system and replace it.
|
| This would have been done by an enthusiastic high school student
| with both programming, electronics, maybe some RF knowledge too.
| Radio amateur? I find these stories kind of sad. Clever system
| built by someone talented, at a low cost -- replacement with a
| modern system costed in the millions. Those talented people still
| exist but they wouldn't get a look in with most RFPs.
| anthk wrote:
| Ask a GNURadio hacker and it can debug the issue in minutes.
| pupppet wrote:
| > A Kentwood High School student programmed it when it was
| installed in the 1980s.
|
| Impressive!
| sublinear wrote:
| > Whenever the district has a problem with it, they go back to
| the original programmer who still lives in the area.
|
| It is indeed impressive, but I hope there's a contract for
| this. Everything else about this story sounds insanely
| incompetent, so I... I worry.
|
| In principle there's nothing wrong with a Motorola 68K running
| a system like this, but the rest of this is damned.
| jprd wrote:
| You'd probably be horrified to know what kind of systems
| still run most of the world's manufacturing, very much
| including modern chip fabs.
| doobiedowner wrote:
| Ladder logic, written by peasants. (signed: control peasant
| that prefers ST)
| kqr2 wrote:
| Related: Palm Pilot helps run the IMAX projector
|
| https://www.theverge.com/23801118/imax-movie-palm-pilot-oppe...
| [deleted]
| tus666 wrote:
| > Hopkins said the system runs on a radio frequency that sends a
| signal to school buildings, which reply within a matter of
| seconds with the status of each building.
|
| I suspect this is what would be difficult to replace. A bespoke
| wireless sensor monitoring and communications system, integrated
| into an old heating/cooling system. Modern system just would not
| integrate into this, without a lot of work. You would have to
| replace everything, probably including the actual heating/cooling
| systems themselves.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > You would have to replace everything, probably including the
| actual heating/cooling systems themselves.
|
| You wouldn't need to replace the actual boilers/chillers/air
| handlers/terminal units, just the temperature controls/control
| wiring/control relays/control computer. There is mechanical
| equipment out there that is still controlled by pneumatic
| controls and that equipment can be retrofit to use digital
| controls.
|
| Replacing the mechanical units may be beneficial, condensing
| boilers are extremely efficient and so are newer chillers/etc.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Maybe replace it with LoRa... but what device is in each
| building? I doubt you have to update the heating/cooling
| systems, they are likely just relay closures.
|
| Also each school is probably on the net these days, so replace
| with some Wifi IOT device.
|
| Or Samsung "Smart Things".. but unlikely to last 30 years..
| doobiedowner wrote:
| >they are likely just relay closures.
|
| You get it, yup.
|
| >Also each school is probably on the net these days, so
| replace with some Wifi IOT device.
|
| What I use are Ethernet to Bacnet gateways. Each building
| gets a gateway device with Bacnet nodes connected over a
| serial daisy chain. If the HVAC device isn't networkable,
| serial devices do the relay flipping. IT folks get the data
| into different applications.
|
| Integration and maintenance are expensive.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Or Samsung "Smart Things".. but unlikely to last 30
| years.._
|
| Is there anything that actually works with it directly? I
| have a growing number of connected devices around me, and
| none of them can talk to SmartThings, except floor heating
| controllers that do so by half-broken integration with
| Tuya...
|
| Trying to figure out (without success) how to hook A/C units
| to SmartThings, I learned that apparently Samsung/ST is
| abandoning their existing "we'll figure it out for you in the
| cloud somehow" architecture, moving towards "please buy our
| hub/edge device, and run some Lua scripts on it"
| architecture, which actually doesn't feel like an upgrade.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Well that's what I figure: you buy their thermostat. We
| don't use ours for hvac control, just water leak
| monitoring.
|
| Can you imagine what Samsung (or any large corporation)
| would want for a centralized controller for an entire
| school district?
| guessbest wrote:
| I thought it was replaced. The developer posted on discus, but
| I found the comment on slashdot quoted.
|
| https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7543887&cid=499003...
|
| >> When the Amiga system originally went in it was controlling
| well over 100 buildings throughout the district, including the
| entire GRCC campus at the time. The Amiga replaced the head-end
| of the system, which was experiencing expensive hardware
| failures every year ... and you couldn't get parts for that
| mini-computer on e-bay. It is essentially acting as a huge
| database (schedules, configurations, control programs, history,
| etc.), system manager, and monitoring system ("head-end") for
| the remaining 19 buildings HVAC systems. If the Amiga goes
| down, the buildings will continue to operate using the
| configurations last received, with most of the individual
| device controls being able to be manually overridden inside
| each building, albeit with less energy efficiency. What you
| will loose is the ability to change schedules/custom control
| code/configurations and the ability to centrally monitor the
| performance of the buildings.
|
| >> Each building has one or more local control systems, and
| those systems communicate back to the central head-end over
| radio-modem (there was no district-wide network back then).
| Schedule and other control changes are sent to the buildings
| and alerts/reports are sent back. That old equipment in the
| buildings, even older than the Amiga, is what dictates the
| radio communications link. They incorporate specific protocols
| for keying up the radio that are not directly compatible with a
| newer serial to Ethernet type device that would seem like a
| logical replacement.
|
| >> The control systems themselves gather temperatures, both
| inside and outside the building, look at trends and do
| predictive control of the equipment to accomodate scheduled use
| of various areas of each building. For the day, this was very
| advanced building control and offered significant energy
| savings, as well as comfort in the buildings.
|
| >> Over time, as buildings have been updated, sold or replaced,
| the local controls withing those buildings have been replaced
| with newer/more modern controls that communicate with newer
| central control systems. Replacing these controls that are
| local to the buildings is what is responsible for the majority
| of the cost I would say.
|
| >> As far as the Amiga system itself, I believe most of the
| components are still the original. The hard drive may have
| failed twice over the years, requiring a rebuild from backups.
| They did pick up or have donated a few Amiga systems to use as
| parts as needed, but the system has proven to be very
| resilient. Obviously, Monitors, Keyboards and Mice can only
| take so much use without needing to be replaced. Without this,
| the system likely would have become inoperable and unservicable
| many years ago, or been incredibly expensive to keep running.
|
| >> From a technical stand point, the Amiga was selected because
| at the time it was the only "Personal Computer" (PC) that had a
| true pre-emptive multi-taskng operating system. It needed to be
| able to handle multiple processes simultaneously, including
| interfacing with the systems, maintaining settings in the
| database, monitoring the system as well as support for both
| local and remote access to the system simultaneously.
| Basically, its capabilities fit the need. While for nostalgia
| reasons I would hate to see it go, it has been 30 years and I
| think the system has done its job. Replacing a building's
| control system doesn't happen overnight, and when you are
| talking 19 buildings with ancient (yes I am calling myself
| ancient I guess) control systems, it is going to take money and
| time. The payback in energy savings, comfort and safe control
| of the buildings though I think justifies the cost.
| tivert wrote:
| > I suspect this is what would be difficult to replace. A
| bespoke wireless sensor monitoring and communications system,
| integrated into an old heating/cooling system. Modern system
| just would not integrate into this, without a lot of work. You
| would have to replace everything, probably including the actual
| heating/cooling systems themselves.
|
| I wonder if it just integrated into a pre-existing control
| network:
|
| > The Commodore Amiga was new to GRPS in the early 1980s and it
| has been working tirelessly ever since. GRPS Maintenance
| Supervisor Tim Hopkins said that the computer was purchased
| with money from an energy bond in the 1980s. It replaced a
| computer that was "about the size of a refrigerator."
|
| > ...
|
| > A Kentwood High School student programmed it when it was
| installed in the 1980s. Whenever the district has a problem
| with it, they go back to the original programmer who still
| lives in the area.
|
| > ...
|
| > Hopkins said the system runs on a radio frequency that sends
| a signal to school buildings, which reply within a matter of
| seconds with the status of each building. The only problem is
| that the computer operates on the same frequency as some of the
| walkie-talkies used by the maintenance department.
|
| If programming it was a school project for an 80s kid, might as
| well try to make its replacement a school project for a 20s
| kid. If a kid did it back then, the integration can't be _that_
| hard.
| hoten wrote:
| The number of layers added to modern programming and computer
| systems has gone up significantly since the 80s. It's
| sensible to claim that a kid from the 80s had far less to
| learn to be effective in the world of the 80s, than a 20s kid
| would need today.
| Sunspark wrote:
| > If programming it was a school project for an 80s kid,
| might as well try to make its replacement a school project
| for a 20s kid. If a kid did it back then, the integration
| can't be that hard.
|
| You need to find a decision-maker to agree to the liability
| of letting some kid implement a system today. What if
| something goes wrong and all the children roast alive or
| something? Then the parents would sue. It'll never happen
| today, people are terrified of being wrong so no is always
| the easiest answer.
|
| Also, yes integration would be hard today. This same pinhead
| decision maker would require it to run on Windows for
| "support" and "security".
|
| That 80s Amiga is probably incredibly reliable and robust
| with its real multi-tasking OS and doesn't require "security
| patches".
|
| What a shame Commodore dropped the ball on it, it was ahead
| of its time.
| whalesalad wrote:
| What makes you say that? A software defined radio could do this
| pretty easily.
| cpach wrote:
| Archive link for people outside of the US:
| https://archive.li/1gGb7
|
| I wonder if they received the funding for replacing it?
| csdvrx wrote:
| Why replace what's not broken? Amortization of costs is one
| possibility. The replacement parts must be hard to obtain, but
| are they spending over 50k/y on old amiga parts? If not, why do
| you think maintenance of the old system would cost more than
| the new system? (+ ongoing yearly fees/maintenance)
|
| Just receiving a funding doesn't imply the need to burn the
| money.
|
| Any replacement using wifi +- cellular and some javascript pile
| of dependencies is likely to work less reliably: for any budget
| of b=1 million it'll cost a multiple x>1 of that.
| ignite wrote:
| Why replace? So you don't have downtime. If it breaks now,
| everything may be off until they replace the system. That
| could be months of no classes, which would be much worse than
| spending money to replace.
|
| If you start now, and finish before it breaks, you don't have
| to have downtime.
| vaxman wrote:
| JayMiner.beginSpinning();
| favorited wrote:
| Title should include (2015) or (2018)
| phas0ruk wrote:
| I love Amiga
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Geoblocked: Content not visible outside the US :(
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| How is this still a thing? Absolutely nuts. What happened to
| the www.
| outside1234 wrote:
| GDPR, cookie popup requirements
| jeron wrote:
| http://archive.is/1gGb7
| haunter wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15ni8gu/til_...
|
| this is happening more and more that I see something in my reddit
| RSS feed first, then hours later it pops up on HN
|
| Another example from today
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37078047
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15ncz6j/til_...
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Your point being? "reddit got it faster"? No pun intended, I
| would like to understand your reasoning.
| chayesfss wrote:
| [dead]
| dv_dt wrote:
| Similarly, I'm excited that I am frequently seeing this kind of
| article in my Mastodon feed first and then seeing it showing up
| in HN.
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