Fortunate Youtube algorithm once more has delivered a video from Psivewri. If you don’t know em, they make videos on restoring old computers and tech. For me it is quite interesting to see the, for me, “retro” hardware in a new light. Although some of these might be in recent memory for others. Psivewri’s video is about the fact that retro tech is just breaking down like a plague swept over it. Any thoughts on this if this is impossible to stop, and what do we need to do that in future we can preserve tech that is history?
And even if nothing is made to last forever. Do we have the scematics or anything to recreate these other than virtually?
It’s sad indeed that our favorite retro devices eventually kick the bucket.
Back in 2019 I got tired on running downloaded ISOs in VMs and began collecting physical media and actual hardware to run it on. But now it’s 2023 and although I’ll continue to collect media, I’m beginning to move back to VMs and emulation since it’s too difficult to maintain that old hardware. It seems a fool’s errand to continue to sink money into replacement parts for what’s essentially a very solitary hobby.
But the good news is, there will always be “new” old tech. I look forward to the day maybe 25 years from now when I can get a 64 core EPYC workataion for pennies on the dollar because it’s considered retro. Hopefully the advances we see in today’s tech design and manufacturing results in more resiliency so it lasts longer into the future than gear from past eras.
Though I fear the DRM hellscape to come when things like the activation servers for Sapphire Rapids CPU “optional features” go offline and we can’t even use hardware that may be physically just fine, all because the software platforms they now rely on have vanished. I think that’ll be an even sadder state of affairs.
Oh wait, I was supposed to be offering good news right? Oh well… I tried.
hopefully, people will collectively realize that the unsustainable model of corporate fascism and thought ownership is detrimental to them each individually, and riot for reform.
Imagine if you could buy a brand new coppermine compatibles processor that can hit 4~5ghz, is 100% coppermine/Pentium III compliant, draws about 15w and costs about $25? Useless for new hardcore gaming PC nerds looking for the fastest modern gaming CPU, but that sure would chew through retro games at a treat of a framerate. Maybe an enterprising nerd could even solder it into a classic Xbox, along with a NV2A Compatibles GPU, and hack halo or whatever game to run at 60fps?
Intellectual property laws only restrict the common people from using the technology they pay for in creative and innovative ways. They haven’t done a lick of good for artists and creatives in literal multiple decades or more. It was always a scam.
To the topic, afaik, you can still buy things like MOS6502 though, which is nice. Retro tech is actually possibly easier to maintain than modern tech, it’s just older and therefore more on the side of failing. Short of some of the mechanical parts, I think it might even be possible to reverse engineer the motherboard of the AppleII, print it at PCBway, and solder on literally every part that made that machine yourself. Try doing that with your Ryzen Pro workstation.
The Amiga and C64 community has a lot of this kind of stuff going on. Not to mention newly designed hardware that works with the original systems and designs. This is possible because the original systems themselves were so much less complicated back then. I envy those guys.
The issue I fear is that we are heading right into those cyberpunk era tech nerds, that most new tech is just inaccessible as hell so we start becoming crafty and use old tech and new ideas to make cool stuff.
And on the other, the tech isn’t just failing. Components bleed and or just for some reasons we are just now wintessing, just turn to shit. like the screen on the thumbnail, softed padding on laptops or softcases, lamps/LEDs give up their hue, crystals just wont turn and and and. There is just so much that we haven’t even seen yet on modern technology that is going to show how unlasting these devices are made to be. Not even talking about the battery, but the fact that some plastic just start being like popcorn and be able to be just snapped by a wind breeze is bothering me, a lot.
Times were easier as computing technologies weren’t super sophisticated and companies weren’t very regulated on materials.
I started making a computer in Minecraft noticing, that it just isn’t that complicated. It gets more convoluted yes when you have to add error correction or graphics units and what not by standard. Anyone notice how closed source and propriotary games are? Like try fixing an OpenGL bug or make Vulkan Drivers for a game that you don’t have other access to than just the game in sold form. Computer tech back then needed one guy to design the whole cpu and board. Now you will need multiple people to do specific parts of a system as it gets more and more indepth. I’m glad we have Risc-V, something to make me feel like I would be able to print out a CPU to run those instructions.
I hope we can photograph and document all old tech so we don’t lose anything so we can one day just build it again and see how it did things better.
