[HN Gopher] Could we build a computer designed to last at least ...
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Could we build a computer designed to last at least fifty years?
(2021)
Author : andai
Score : 104 points
Date : 2024-10-07 11:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ploum.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (ploum.net)
| t-3 wrote:
| Haven't we basically already built them? They're just slow and
| not supported by software vendors so nobody wants to use them.
| Other than replacing capacitors and realtime clock batteries on
| every 20 years or so, dusting and replacing fans when bearings go
| bad (assuming it's not a passively-cooled design), most computers
| should basically last beyond a human lifetime (I've read that
| those less than ~20nm will go bad over time as traces lose atoms
| and eventually fail, but older processes should be fine).
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Haven't we basically already built them?
|
| Yes, we have. I have a few computers that old or older, and
| they run just fine. Every so often a dried-up capacitor has to
| be replaced, but that's about it.
| andai wrote:
| Are you talking about C64?
| supportengineer wrote:
| One of them is in interstellar space
| basementcat wrote:
| Two.
|
| https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/mission-overview/
| rurban wrote:
| Not just interstellar space. Everything in space needs to
| be radiation hardened, thus equal to a 50 year old
| computer.
|
| They do use laptops, but not for much longer than a year.
| The basics must endure longer.
| kmoser wrote:
| > older processes should be fine
|
| Except for metal whiskering:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)
| shrubble wrote:
| However the older solders have a much higher percentage of
| lead in their composition which makes whiskering less likely.
| I have two Zenith Z-120s made in about 1980 and thus coming
| up on 50 years old which don't have any issues.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I know of a running TRS80 and a BBC Model-B, but the retro-
| heads who own them jst pwer them up now and then, not in
| constant use so as not to heat-stress them. TBH they smell
| a bit. My theory is the transformer windings are on the way
| out.
| klyrs wrote:
| Wire-wrap avoids that altogether:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wrap
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Hard drives will probably go bad before capacitors, most of the
| time.
| gladiatr72 wrote:
| https://hackaday.com/2019/12/06/visiting-the-facom-128b-1958...
|
| I was quite impressed to learn about the 66 year-old computer
| that is still in use with the Japanese transit system.
| flobosg wrote:
| (2021)
| adrian_b wrote:
| Most modern MOS circuits are no longer designed to last 50 years,
| unlike most integrated circuits and discrete semiconductor
| devices of 50 years ago. There is no chance for any up-to-date
| CPU or memory module to work for 50 years.
|
| Nevertheless, it is quite easy to be able to use a modern
| computer for 50 years, if you just get 10 computers that do not
| contain components that age even when they are not used, e.g.
| batteries or electrolytic capacitors, and you use one computer
| until it breaks, keeping the others in storage until you must
| replace the current work computer.
|
| Such a set of modern computers would be faster, cheaper and
| smaller than a single computer in the style of PDP-11 or VAX,
| made by using low-density components that can work for 50 years.
| Clamchop wrote:
| > Lots of writers keep using [typewriters], they became trendy in
| the 2010s and, to escape surveillance, some secret services
| started to use them back. It's a very niche but existing market.
|
| At first blush, this sentiment appears to also be true of old
| computers. There is growing "trendy" interest in them, and
| they're otherwise still fit for purpose for some tasks, like
| gaming, writing, driving long-unsupported hardware or software.
| The community around it has been rather industrious in servicing
| old machines, particularly Macs.
|
| But they cannot satisfy all the requirements we have of a modern
| computer, and neither can a typewriter. However, the length of
| time a computer has before being truly obsolete seems much longer
| now than it used to be. You could easily get a decade or more if
| you can control the itch for new and shiny and have modest
| performance needs.
|
| Might need to replace the battery, if the device has one. There's
| some luck involved with getting the longest support window
| possible from MS or Apple. Google and co are famously a lot worse
| on this front, if we're talking phones.
| themadturk wrote:
| I couldn't help thinking of the AlphaSmart[0] while reading this.
| The writer's primary need seems to be an offline, lasts-forever
| writing device, so no version of the AlphaSmart meets all the
| criteria. But it is (or was) an offline-only device that was
| limited to writing and a few educational applications. The
| keyboard was excellent, text could be transferred between device
| and computer via cable, and the AA-batteries would last for
| literally hundreds of hours.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart
| theodric wrote:
| E-ink maybe isn't it, anyway. A few years ago I built an e-ink
| clock/gimmick that refreshed every few seconds with some
| different text on a given part of the screen, and within 1.5
| years the sides unto about 2cm in - but not the parts being
| constantly refreshed! - had more stuck/weak pixels than not. A
| halo of rot. 50 years is a long time, much longer than 1.5.
| jmrm wrote:
| I think we have reached a point in tech where there isn't a huge
| benefit about changing computer every 3 years like in the past.
|
| You can have a computer with 10 years that can run modern OSs and
| software without being incompatible or too slow, a thing totally
| impossible 20 years ago.
|
| If you do AI related developement or play videogames, you would
| require at least a new GPU, but outside that, I think the only
| couple things (pretty major IMO) making those computers less
| useful are more complex video formats not available to decode by
| hardware, and the vast amount of code some web apps use (try
| using YouTube or Twitter in an old laptop)
| Suzuran wrote:
| Security issues are the driver now. I had to shut down some
| machines at work last month because their CPUs have a microcode
| flaw that the vendor is not releasing a fix for.
| cesarb wrote:
| That heavily depends on your usage. Most microcode security
| issues are local-only, so if your use case doesn't require
| the local execution of arbitrary executable code, all you
| lost is one extra security layer, which would become relevant
| only if other security layers (the ones which prevent
| arbitrary local code execution in the first place) fail.
| Apreche wrote:
| The Apple IIGs exists. I have one. I think it's going to make it
| to 50 no problem.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| i like to think about thought experiments like this: what if
| electronics/large consumer goods were all bar-coded and, when
| they are disposed of, scanned in, and the original manufacturer
| is charged some fee for the recycling/disposal of them. Make
| "repairing with minimal waste" the recurring revenue that product
| companies shoot for, rather than the new new thing.
| asoneth wrote:
| Whether it happens in tens, hundreds, thousands, or more years,
| every physical product has a finite lifespan.
|
| So it might be simpler to charge a fee when a product is
| initially manufactured that is based on the current cost of
| disposing that product. Perhaps this could even replace things
| like consumer sales tax or VAT.
|
| That would incentivize manufacturers to create products with
| minimal disposal costs, and it would incentivize consumers to
| hang on to products longer or buy used.
| nilamo wrote:
| And it'd also open up a whole new exciting Futures market!
| sgu999 wrote:
| We've had this in France for a bit more than 10 years:
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-participation
|
| It's a fixed fee based on the category of the device though,
| so not really an incentive for companies to change their
| ways, other than moving the entire business line from making
| iPhones to light bulbs.
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| I guess the point of charging the company at the time of
| disposal would be that they'd be earning interest on that
| money in the meantime. So they'd be incented to make it last
| longer.
|
| It wouldn't work for several reasons though, not least
| because the company could cease to exist before the product
| failed.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Canada charges a recycling fee when you purchase electronics.
| The claim is that it covers all costs of recycling at an
| audited/approved recycler.
|
| When you are done with your electronics you can drop them off
| at any recycling center to be disposed.
|
| It varies by province, but the cost is actually pretty
| minimal. I think the most expensive fee in my province is a
| large display at $7. The recycling fee for a laptop is less
| than a dollar.
|
| It doesn't incentivize less consumption when you are paying
| the tax up front, but it does incentivize making sure that
| the electronics actually make it to the correct waste stream
| instead of the landfill.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Recycling, as is, means reducing something to its component
| materials. We need to incentivize manufacturers such that it
| means reducing something to its component parts. Testable
| parts, with standard interfaces.
|
| Perhaps we should have that bar code link to a prepaid account
| which handles shipping it back to the manufacturer. Things will
| be more repairable if making the most of a broken one was the
| manufacturer's problem.
| d_silin wrote:
| A good laptop will last for 5-10 years, about as long a car, I
| guess. 20 year laptops (Thinkpads mostly) are still around.
|
| If average laptop lifetime is about 5 years (for all reasons),
| then about 0.1% will make it to 50 years and remain operational.
| bluGill wrote:
| The average car on the road is 12 years old in the us. I
| suspect average laptop is around 4.
| dvh wrote:
| Modern notebooks don't last. You drop it 3-4 times and the
| hinges are busted.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I don't agree. There were old tanks, sure, but regular
| laptops were plastic and flimsy. Even PowerBooks would
| slightly flex when handled by the edges.
|
| Apple led the way with the unibody aluminum case and now even
| midrange laptops are pretty sturdy.
| tristor wrote:
| Only for consumer-grade stuff, which is basically disposable
| garbage that's obsolete the day you purchase it, which is
| about what you get for $350 at Walmart. For any actually
| decent laptop designed for enterprises/businesses, this is
| not true, they still have steel hinge pins and plastic-over-
| metal hinge bodies. Doesn't really matter if you buy Dell,
| Lenovo, Apple, business-quality laptops don't have these
| issues, but they do start at around $1000/unit.
|
| The problem with any discussion around electronics longevity
| is that it's a bimodal market. You have the stuff that
| generates the bulk of revenue, which is generally meant to be
| purchased as a "fleet" by businesses or MSPs, and you have
| the stuff that generates the bulk of the actual devices, but
| at most lower BOM cost (meaning lower quality) which is
| targeted at "consumers". Anybody who is even a little bit
| technical has already noticed this simply due to the
| difference in experience between the laptop they're issued at
| work vs what they may have once had at home, and likely has
| opted to bite the bullet and pay for quality.
|
| Once you are on the higher end of the bimodal distribution,
| longevity is a significantly different challenge. I have an
| X230 laptop I bought new in 2012 that is still in use weekly
| and functions completely fine. My much newer M3 Macbook Pro
| is significantly more powerful, but is completely unnecessary
| for what that laptop is for. That's 12 years of usage without
| any sign of slowing down, and since that X230 is my car
| laptop I use in my race car for tuning and data monitoring, I
| can guarantee it's had a lot worse than "3-4 drops" over the
| last 12 years, including surviving a crash in my old race
| car.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Modern cars don't last. You crash them three or four times
| and the wheels fall off.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Mildly tech-savvy people make weird choices. Pointing at
| thicker laptops and calling it outdated and unattractive, for
| example.
| everyone wrote:
| Laptops and also smartphones dont last in my experience.. Too
| much miniaturisation imo. I dont buy them 2nd hand, I only buy
| new ones as they only have a limited life. Desktops on the
| other hand, will last forever, I buy those 2nd hand and they
| are so cheap but they function perfectly.. Also if something
| does break they are modular and its trivial to replace the
| broken part.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| It greatly depends on the laptop, even within the same
| manufacturer. I have lots of old Apple gear that still works
| but is just too old to get security updates:
|
| - 2012 13" MBP, works great with an SSD upgrade, and the
| hinge is still solid, which was not the case with my 2009 15"
| MBP where the screen literally ripped off.
|
| - 2013 15" retina MBP. Great laptop, still plenty fast to use
| today, but runs a little hot and the battery life was never
| amazing.
|
| - 2015 12" retina Macbook. Survived _two_ glasses of water
| spilled on it, but the speakers and bluetooth died. It was
| miserably slow to use anyway.
|
| My daily driver is now a 15" M3 Macbook, which has been
| amazing in nearly every way. Only minor complaints is that
| the ram maxes out at 24GB and I wish I had 1 more USB port on
| the other side.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| I have a Tandy trs-80 model 100 which is at least 40 years old.
| Not so far from the 50 year mark.
| everyone wrote:
| Voyager 1 and 2 are still functioning. And they were built on the
| cheap.. They certainly weren't supposed to last 47 years but they
| did.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| The web sure is convenient, but for the actual work I do, I could
| in fact work on a 30 to 35 year old computer. I mostly code, and
| occasionally I process words or spread sheets. All things I could
| do on a DOS machine, or even something like an Apple //e. I'd
| certainly be fine on an Amiga. I'd be on cloud nine with a
| NeXTCube. I don't know that I'm willing to go older than early
| 80s, though. I need my computer to at least handle both uppercase
| and lowercase.
|
| So arguably we've already built computers that last 40 years.
| Another decade doesn't seem crazy.
| cons0le wrote:
| This is also why when we eventually do have a breakthrough in
| AI or quantum computing, it wont change anything. We'll just
| use AI to serve ads on Quantum Facebook, or something equally
| useless. So many web frameworks have come out in the past 10
| years and more then ever websites are spammy, bloated, and less
| intuitive than they were 10 years ago.
|
| I love wikipedia because it's more performant than facebook or
| youtube, it doesn't track me, it doesn't have anything moving
| or sliding around the page to increase "engagement" ,, it just
| gives me info without making me fight for it. I wish every
| website was wikipedia. I don't need react or angular, I don't
| 60fps buttons with smooth gradients. I just want my info
| saltcured wrote:
| Yeah, it's mostly about "last 50 years doing what?".
|
| Someone else mentioned the Voyager space probes. I think there
| are cars from the 70s and 80s with some embedded computers and
| some of these are still on the road too. The computer
| electronics can be made robust if desired. The hard part is if
| you mean "general purpose" and you want to include purposes of
| the future that we haven't explored yet.
|
| I've recently powered up some "portable" Toshiba computers from
| around 1990. Aside from the CMOS clock batteries being dead and
| resetting to the wrong time, they booted DOS and I was able to
| use their existing programs to inspect the existing data files,
| delete things, and run a disc scrubbing utility. The vacuum
| fluorescent display worked like new, the hard drive still
| worked, etc.
|
| These would still work for word processing etc. But with their
| RAM, storage, and IO limitations, they wouldn't work for modern
| use cases with modern sized media payloads.
|
| I recall my 386-class machine that supported my computer
| science course work in university. It was able to barely decode
| a short 320x240 ~10 fps MPEG video demo from a research group.
| Its entire disk space was only about 80 MB, whereas today I may
| have bigger files than that on my phone.
|
| You could build some kind of Computer of Theseus that has
| sensible buses and modular pieces to allow it to be expanded
| over time to support new use cases. I think they are called
| "mainframes". But, economics aren't going to make this cheap
| and competitive enough for consumer use cases.
|
| This is what desktop PCs were for us in recent decades. It's
| not going to make it 50 years, but we got a lot of mileage out
| of the various buses and power connectors to allow incremental
| upgrades of parts. Eventually, you wipe the slate to get rid of
| some of the most legacy parts, buses, and form factors.
| Nobody's PC power supply from 1990 was going to support a
| modern GPU, not to mention the changing power needs of CPUs and
| mainboards.
| kccqzy wrote:
| The voyager spacecrafts are almost fifty years old.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Naval ships are loaded with them.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_gun_fire-control_system...
| dhosek wrote:
| I kind of feel like we're rapidly approaching an end of history
| point on computing. The joke in the late 90s/early 00s was that
| your computer became obsolete on the way home from the store. My
| computing upgrade cycles have been getting longer and longer.
| Same with phones. I last upgraded my iPhone in 2022 not because I
| needed to (it was three years old), but because I wanted some of
| the newer features. What used to be a 2-year cycle like clockwork
| has stretched to 3 or 4 years. My laptop cycle has gone from 3
| years to 5 years and that last only because the display stopped
| working (it's now running headless in my music studio). The
| limiting factor has become less one of functionality and one of
| durability, and while there's work to be done there, right now
| the economic factors don't make sense. As revenue shifts to
| services from hardware though, I expect to see a greater emphasis
| on long-lasting computers until the expectation is that a
| computer, phone or tablet is expected to have a 10-15 year
| lifespan.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I have a 2014 macbook that I still use pretty regularly.
|
| The only longevity issue is the battery, which is a limited
| lifetime part no matter what, and no support for the newest
| Xcode, which is unfortunate, but not a real limitation on what
| I use it for. It's something that I could probably work around
| by using opencore.
|
| Its kind of crazy TBH. A 2004 macbook (powerbook?) would have
| been genuinely outdated in 2014, but in 2024, my 10 year old
| laptop is... fine?
|
| Same thing with my phones. I went from an iphone 4, to a 5, to
| a 6 to an 11. And there I have stayed. There are a few features
| that would be nice to have, but not enough for me to fork over
| the cash. And my old one still does everything fine.
|
| The real limitations are the incompatibilities with new APIs. I
| fixed up an old macbook air I found at a recycling center for a
| friend's kid (2011?) and getting it setup took some time since
| the imaged version of Safari incompatible with modern HTTPS.
| Once I cleared that hump, though, it was a great machine for
| youtube, browsing, etc...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > in 2024, my 10 year old laptop is... fine?
|
| Except for the lack of security updates and it chokes when
| playing 1080p youtube videos and such.
|
| Also, I doubt you've used any Apple Silicon systems. I had a
| MBP of similar vintage with a discreet GPU, with an upgraded
| SSD much faster than stock, and the M1 that replaced it was
| "holy shit" levels faster; now they're on the third gen with
| the fourth about to make it into portables and workstations.
| kbrecordzz wrote:
| Computers continue to work "forever" if you only use its own
| closed system, like writing Word documents on the harddrive. It's
| the complexity of the internet that makes hardware obsolete
| today. The internet consists of too many parts working together
| to make it profitable to focus on longevity and stability, the
| focus on the internet is instead flexibility and broad usage. And
| it's mostly the security standards that force us to buy new
| hardware in the end. From SSL to TLS, to TLS 1.2 & 1.3, almost
| all sites upgraded to the new standards and made old web browsers
| not work to browse the internet with anymore. And if the newest
| web browser your computer supports is one before 2014 (before TLS
| 1.2), your computer is dead, because it can't visit the internet.
| So it's mostly the software layer of the internet that makes us
| not get "forever computers", and therefore "we" software people
| maybe are the ones with the power to make a change here?
| bcrl wrote:
| It's the misalignment of software developers' interests with
| those of end users that makes old systems unusable. Do we
| really need web pages that stream 4 video ads on loading and
| have another pop-up over top of the content the user requested
| asking us to subscribe? I miss the simplicity of the old days.
| anthk wrote:
| I'm using TLS 1.3 based sites with Dillo just fine.
| topherPedersen wrote:
| I have several computers that are 40 years old. I think the
| reason the old 80s microcomputers last so long is they don't have
| any moving parts like disk drives that go bad (I've had really
| bad success with the external disk drives I've purchased).
| Unfortunately, I think the reason why computers and phones don't
| last a long time now is because the companies designing the
| phones, computers, and operating systems WANT them to quit
| working.
|
| The reason computers slow down and stop working worth a damn has
| nothing to do with the hardware, it's the operating system's
| receiving "updates" that make them quit working. I have a TRS-80
| Color Computer running the Microsoft BASIC "operating system"
| that Bill Gates wrote himself and it still works great 40 years
| later.
|
| And then the big issue with phones are the batteries. The phone
| manufacturers know that the batteries go bad, so they glue them
| into the phones so you can't replace them. Obviously if you
| wanted the phones to last a long time, you'd make it to where you
| can put a new battery in the damn thing. They also know that the
| screens break, so they'd make those easy to replace yourself as
| well if they cared.
|
| That is nice you can take phones to those little repair places
| and they seem to do a nice job replacing screens and batteries,
| but they could probably design a phone where you can do it
| yourself.
| mfuzzey wrote:
| One of the issues with user replaceable batteries is
| waterproofing (IP rating).
|
| My first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy S1. It had an easilly
| swappable battery which was great because time between
| recharges was much shorter in those days so I had 2, one in the
| phone and one in the charger.
|
| But once I got the phone wet just using it outside in the rain.
| After that it refused to charge for several days until it dried
| out.
|
| More recently I've dropped my phone in water and it was
| perfecty fine with no drying time at all...
| pdimitar wrote:
| Sounds like a great and interesting engineering problem to
| work on.
|
| The corporations still will not work on it though, for the
| exact reasons your parent commenter outlined.
|
| I for one I am not convinced that we have to choose between
| swappable batteries and water-proof devices. I say we can
| have both -- but nobody in the business wants to figure it
| out, for obvious reasons.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| We don't have to choose. Those phones exist, they just
| don't sell well. Here's one you've never heard of:
| https://www.samsung.com/uk/smartphones/others/galaxy-
| xcover7...
|
| We have to choose between swappable batteries,
| waterproofness, and compactness. most people are more
| concerned with waterproofness and compactness, and are
| perfectly happy to have a phone where the battery is not
| field serviceable.
|
| Resealable waterproof cases that don't require adhesives
| are less reliable and bulkier. Nobody really wants a
| waterproof phone, with a replaceable battery, that has an
| o-ring seal that can be defeated by a cat hair.
|
| The phones do exist, but you have to go looking for them.
| pdimitar wrote:
| I wouldn't mind a Galaxy Xcover at all by the way, but
| here's one more war the corporations push people away
| from these devices: lack of software updates.
|
| :(
| mjevans wrote:
| How about:
|
| Waterproof phone* (excluding contacts for the battery and
| 3.5mm audio ports, which can be submerged without long
| term damage), and
|
| Waterproofed battery* (safe to submerge, refuses to
| discharge unsafely).
|
| I, personally, would also sacrifice compactness for
| robustness. I don't rock climb, but make a phone that can
| survive a tumble of multiple 10 meter drops and rolls and
| twists down a rock face. It must still be able to call
| EMS. That spec sounds bullet-proof enough to survive my
| relative's young kids worst antics.
| numpad0 wrote:
| There's another one on Verizon USA right now[1]. Same
| story: heavy, bulky, anyone who asks for it don't commit
| to it.
|
| By the way, I was really surprised to learn that US Army
| special operations guys just procure whatever latest
| models of Galaxy S2x in a marginally special plastic case
| that clips onto a flip-down chest mount. If that's all
| they need for parachute jumping and covert operations as
| far as physical reliability is concerned, surely I am not
| going to need any more hardening for my daily uses.
|
| On the other hand, I sometimes see these seriously rugged
| phones seriously beaten up appearing in used markets with
| warehouse or heavy industrial factory style damages.
| Clearly that's where IP56 protection is actually required
| and proven.
|
| 1: https://www.techradar.com/pro/phone-
| communications/kyocera-d...
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| The corporate excuse before was "no one would buy a brick",
| now the excuse is "no one would buy a non-waterproof
| phone". We have the technology to make a user-replaceable
| phone with modern parts, just look at the Fairphone.
| numpad0 wrote:
| [delayed]
| dave333 wrote:
| Desktop PC hardware is sufficiently modular and easy to upgrade.
| It would be nice if upgrades were add-on rather than throwing
| away the replaced module(s) but HW changes so fast it's almost
| never worth it. Software could be improved to make things longer
| lasting such as make clean install trivial with good separation
| of user vs system data. I recently added an SSD and made my old
| HDD the G: drive but the new instance of Windows on the SSD did
| not consider the new SSD userid with the same name as the old HDD
| userid to be the same user and so accessing the old files became
| a file sharing nightmare. Also the old HDD drive started taking
| forever for reboot file system checks and I had to just
| disconnect it. So now I am wading through all my old backups
| trying to figure out what is what.
| rjakobsson wrote:
| I really vibe with the author's vision: an offline-first
| computer, made to last.
| miohtama wrote:
| Voyager is still going, qndand has a computer by very early
| definition.
| falcolas wrote:
| An excuse to link one of my favorite NASA/Honeywell slideshows:
|
| https://c3.ndc.nasa.gov/dashlink/static/media/other/Observed...
|
| The long story short is that there are byzantine failure methods
| which prevent a 50 year computer. A sample:
|
| - Capacitors can act as bullets
|
| - Forced air cooling creating water
|
| - The smaller the parts, the greater the chance they'll transmute
| to another part. Even, or especially in solid state parts.
|
| - Digital isn't (i.e. 1 isn't really full voltage, and 0 isn't
| really no voltage).
|
| - Thermal expansion matters, even for ICs on a board.
|
| - Wire length, and the position of sensors on that wire, matters.
|
| A 50 year computer would probably have to be one in which each
| part can and is replaced on a schedule. And the faster the
| computer is, the more often parts would need to be replaced.
| Additionally, if we want 100% uptime there would also have to be
| sufficient redundancies to ensure that the computer could
| continue operating during failures or replacements of components.
| mjevans wrote:
| The 'survivor bunker' control computer that has maintenance
| every 5, even 10, years does have a different specification
| than one that must survive untouched, 'mothballed', for 50+
| years and still work properly. In both cases I would prefer a
| standard modular interface, ideally a presently popular one
| like USB-A since I doubt it'll be a while before that's
| completely phased out. Even then it'll be someone's hobby
| project to have a not-quite off the shelf adapter.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| MOCAS is still going from 1958... Hardware has been updated a few
| times and it currently runs on a IBM 2098 model E-10 mainframe
| (2008?)
|
| https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/06/166822/what-is-t...
| gchadwick wrote:
| I find it odd the author spends lots of time talking about
| vintage typewriters but then fails to consider vintage computers
| which can give some real life examples of computers that are
| still usable almost 50 years on from their original release. E.g.
| the Commodore 64, lots of working examples still around and now
| 42 years since first release.
|
| Certainly a C64 is highly restrictive compared to a modern
| machine and were one to specifically build a computer to last 50
| years it's not where you'd start but surely a machine that has
| actually lasted almost 50 years and remains usable has things to
| teach you about long lasting computer design.
|
| In particular interesting to see how open source fits in. The
| modern C64 ecosystem has plenty of tools and utilities that do
| use open source software and hardware (e.g. the Kung Fu Flash
| cartridge: https://github.com/KimJorgensen/KungFuFlash) but
| plenty of the core software, that actually runs on the machine,
| is proprietary software the source is long gone for. It's still
| around because of archivists and pirates and can continue to be
| used because the original copyright holders don't care to enforce
| their copyrights. So is open source actually a core item as the
| author asserts or just a nice to have? Having the software be
| archived and easily available later was the key. Along with
| simplicity, you just run the monolithic binary, there's no
| dependencies and the software is sufficiently simple that hacking
| around with the raw binary is perfectly feasible.
| gchadwick wrote:
| Thinking about it the Apple II is a better example here, for
| one thing it's yet older (47 years). However I don't personally
| posses one nor have I ever used one so I concentrated on the
| C64.
|
| The author talks about doing timeless activities well. You can
| still word process, do spreadsheets and program on an Apple II.
| Probably meets the author's 'sturdy and resilient' requirements
| as well as being a 'heavier and well-designed object'.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> So is open source actually a core item as the author asserts
| or just a nice to have?_
|
| I think there's a difference in terms here. Having a computer
| that lasts for 50 years doesn't necessarily mean that you want
| a computer that is forever unchanging, frozen in amber. You
| should be _able_ to upgrade a long-term computer, if you want
| to (including the software); the point is just that you don 't
| _have_ to upgrade.
|
| For the "frozen in amber" use case, sure, you could just pirate
| the proprietary stuff and hope to fly under the radar. But for
| the living use case, you need open source, even if that's based
| on some decompiled proprietary code.
| ndiddy wrote:
| The C64 ROM source code hasn't been lost (it's here:
| https://github.com/mist64/cbmsrc) but I would count it as
| "source available" because it's not freely licensed (I believe
| Cloanto owns the copyright to it).
| xeox538 wrote:
| 30 years running now, but probably would run another 20. Does
| this count?
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a...
| S_A_P wrote:
| I'm going on 7 years with my iMac Pro now and it's still more
| than enough for my uses. (Audio recording/production) I am hoping
| to get 3 more years out of it if possible. We'll see if Apple
| lets that happen.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| If you do that work professionally, optimizing solely for capex
| while ignoring opex and the cost of business interruption, is
| not sound.
| anthk wrote:
| >But this permanent connectivity is a choice. We can design a
| computer to be offline first. Once connected, it will synchronise
| everything that needs to be: mails will be sent and received,
| news and podcasts will be downloaded from your favourite websites
| and RSS, files will be backuped, some websites or gemini pods
| could even be downloaded until a given depth. This would be
| something conscious. The state of your sync will be displayed
| full screen. By default, you would not be allowed to use the
| computer while it is online. You would verify that all the sync
| is finished then take the computer back offline. Of course, the
| full screen could be bypassed but you would need to consciously
| do it. Being online would not be the mindless default.
|
| Offpunk. Slrn with slrnpull and mutt +mbsync/msmtp. Heaven.
|
| Offpunk:
|
| https://sr.ht/~lioploum/offpunk/
| dave333 wrote:
| In the 1980s AT&T was designing cabinet-sized minicomputers that
| would have less than 2 hours downtime in 40 years and went to
| great lengths to enable software update without reboot (functions
| accessed via transfer vectors) and ability to survive and
| continue running through earthquakes. These are still running I
| gather as part of various phone switching systems 4ESS, 5ESS
| although the hardware has been "reengineered."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3B_series_computers .
| tony-allan wrote:
| This is a great thought experiment!
|
| The design goal is to build a computer that lasts 50 years. To me
| this implies a design that is modular and repairable and possibly
| not based on something you can buy today. I don't want to base my
| computer on the products that existed 50 years ago or the
| products I can buy today.
|
| What would I give up in order to get a computer (hardware and
| software) that lasts 50 years? Size, weight, speed, complexity.
| Sure.
|
| We now know a lot about change so I need a device that accounts
| for almost every technology that I use today to have evolved
| significantly. So I need some long term features.
|
| I want to think in terms of modules, which may be independent
| physical things. I also want a case to put it all in.
|
| Over the next 50 years I (and my grandchildren) need to be able
| to repair and replace any part that breaks and continue to evolve
| the modules that I use, the case and the way the modules interact
| with each other. My needs will continue to evolve. The rest of
| the world will continue to evolve around me and I still want to
| interact with it and its services.
|
| I think some things are constant. I need power; a way to input
| data; process and store it; usefully share it with others; and a
| way to output that data.
|
| My modules may therefore include a keyboard, some sort of
| pointing device and potentially other input devices in the
| future; a power supply; a bunch of CPU's for various purposes in
| one or more modules; a set of storage and archive devices;
| networking; one or more output devices, perhaps a screen or two.
|
| Perhaps the most important thing is an idea, philosophy and a
| clear idea of what I want the device to do. The article talks
| about typewriters which are clear on each of these points. I also
| like the idea that I will need an emotional investment in
| whatever I end up with.
|
| If I wanted to experiment today I would start with a bunch of
| Raspberry Pi's and their kindred microcontrollers. Each of my
| modules would contain one or more of these devices. I would pick
| a set of connection standards. I don't know where the idea's go
| from there but it would be fun to find out!
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