*** Ideas needed for developing interactive displays....

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Thu Sep 9 03:25:19 2004

On Wed, 2004-09-08 at 23:31 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
> >
> > Yes we are planning on having the hp 2000 emulator!
> > cheaper to have tsb this way compared to running the whole system which will
>
> Whereas the machine that runs the emulator will never need repair?

That's when you throw it out and get another one, though! (Sorry,
indulging in a bit of "Tony baiting" there ;-)

On a serious note though, a museum might not have a complete old machine
(of whatever type) - experience is that for the big stuff things tend to
arrive as parts here and there, so often all there is may be a rack with
bits missing, or a console for a mainframe etc.

In that case the item either has to sit in storage where nobody can see
it, or live as a static exhibit. I'd say that's a perfect case where
emulation is acceptable though as it adds something to the item for the
public - of course the golden rule is not to modify the original item in
any way, such that if the missing bits do ever turn up they can be added
to the system in the hope of having an *original* working machine.

Even then having the original working might not be practical though -
whilst the skills might be there to fix the hardware, the time might not
be. That's all too common at Bletchley; even if I have the skills to fix
items there's only one of me (and sometimes less than that :) - the best
I can do is collect together missing technical documentation where
possible in the hope that someone else will have the time to work on
items at a later date...

Plus of course, as well as space & time, power and heat considerations
may come into play; some of the bigger machines are expensive to run for
a non-profit museum, and the heat they chuck out can be considerable
(have a couple of DECs, the Marconi, and 20 or so micros running at once
and it soon gets unbearably warm in our room!)

cheers

Jules
Received on Thu Sep 09 2004 - 03:25:19 BST