Collection policy was Re: No space for vinatge computers in

From: Hans B Pufal <hansp_at_citem.org>
Date: Tue May 27 07:01:00 2003

Tony Duell wrote:

> A case in point. I know a museum which has a straight-8. They are missing
> 2 flip-chip cards from it. I happen to have a box full of boards pulled
> from a straight-8 (no, the chassis was not around when I got to grab the
> cards, and no I wasn't involved in pulling them). I offered said museum
> the 2 cards they needed, free of charge. They didn't want them because
> the date code stamped on the board was 2 years too late.
>
> A few points

> 3) The machine in question was not an original obtained from DEC and
> never used. It was a machine that had been used for many years before
> being donated to the museum. What's the betting that some flip-chip cards
> were replaced while the machine was in use?

Did you suggest that they check the date code on all the other cards ;-)

>>are expensive and hard to find, and the fact that a screwup during operation
>>could actually destroy one of the few remaining examples (or only one). Most

> I doubt it would destroy the machine in the sense that it could no longer
> be used as an exhibit, or indeed that it could no longer be restored
> again. In that sense, a machine that had been restored and then failed
> during the museum demonstration is no different to a machine that's never
> been restored.

An makes the demonstration closer to real life when machines DID break
down. I even imagine demonstrations of engineers fixing and testing the
machines, a regular occurrence. Today you simply go aout an buy a new
one :-(

> Are you seriously implying that the internals of a fairly modern computer
> and one made, perhaps, 30 years ago are significantly different? Because
> I find them to be very similar...

They ARE entiely the same, the difference is that to see that
resemblance you need to run the machine. The museum s stance of showing
only statc display accentuates only the differences without explaining
the similarities.

>>different today, how can people relate to this? While there are still a few
>>people who know how to make a horseshoe at a blacksmiths there will be
>>nobody who knows how to run the early mainframes in 50 years, things are

> Rubbish!. Are you seriously trying to tell me that these skills can't be
> learnt? I would claim that anybody who _truely_ understood a modern
> machine would have no problems on an older one. The fact that very few
> people understand modern computers is the problem, not that the older
> machines are so different.

Precisely! and I see the older machines as offering a path towards
better understanding.

   -- hbp
Received on Tue May 27 2003 - 07:01:00 BST