Subject: Re: Collection policy was Re: No space for vinatge computers in

From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue May 27 17:11:01 2003

>From: [email-masked]
---snip---
>
>> 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.
>
>-tony
>

Hi
 I think these older machines are easier to work on. Things
are more exposed and excessable. Most of the newer machines
one has today are not even as repairable( motherboard fails,
swap out motherboard! ).
Dwight

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From: [email-masked] (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner)
Date: Wed May 28 03:07:00 2003

> one has today are not even as repairable( motherboard fails,

  As much as I hate to say this, but isn't this inevitable?  Take, for
instance, a homebrewed 6502 system---a gate in one of the 74xx series chips
blows, you can't repair the chip, unlike say, a PDP-1 where the offending
transistors/diodes can be repaired in the single blown gate.  So you have to
toss *the entire chip* and replace it.

  Replacing a card (or motherboard) is that, only writ large.

  And I see the beginnings where if some component on the computer fails,
you replace the computer (I would imaging this happens at Google with their
multi-thousand PC clusters).

  -spc (Not that I like this, but I see this as a trend ... )

---

From: David Holland <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed May 28 08:24:00 2003

> multi-thousand PC clusters).

That's the intent of blade computing.  You've a rack of computers.
If one of them fails, you don't care, plenty of spare capacity.  And
repair of the failed system is to replace the entire computer. 
(CPU, Memory, even the drives..)

In the non-blade space, FWIW,  The smallest field replaceable unit on 
a Sun 6800 is an entire system board.  (that includes multiple CPU's
and all of the memory DIMMs, plus anything else that's on the board)    

My guess says one of those sysboards lists for over 100,000$ (american).
(fortunately, work has a support contract.)

Agreed that its kinda sad, but considering the connectors involved, 
probably the only way to do it. 

David