TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-05, 21:34:

go to any recycling center and you will find "rare and expensive" components galore. And promptly be told they cant be sold to you for some BS reason (even if you offer many times the scrap value)

Here it's because the dump "pays" you (as a discount on garbage tax), up to a certain amount per year, if you bother taking stuff there in person - and most people seem to have learnt that - which of course would be trivial to scam if you could pick stuff back up 🙁

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-07, 12:11:

Plenty of tools exist that can wipe hard drives.

Too slow! I use the write test on Victoria or MHDD for those I sell (especially the former: 3 in 1 erase/test/timestamp, with the "numbering" option) and it's more boring than installing an OS from real optical drive!

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-07, 12:11:

really how common is it for people to go around looking for old PC's to try and find sensitive data?

Little but it's the first thing I did when the used digital video camera I bought came with an unadvertised 32 GB SD 😜

stealthjoe wrote on 2023-03-08, 03:18:

Anything lower than a 945 board is nearly impossible to get. Sites like olx or quikr (local versions of craigslist) hardly have such listings. Also there are many listings for old pc buyers (only buying) who seem to hoard all the old vintage parts but in turn refuse to sell them despite offering good prices. Probably they sell it to the recyclers who in turn also refuse to sell.
There are very few retro parts sellers far away from my place (around 1600 kms), but they mostly have worthless boards/parts but charge ebay prices or even worse . The final nail in the coffin is Ebay. However when the pc boards/cards arrive, expect a 80-100% duty for sure on top of the premium prices paid.

Same here in Italy: it used to be that electronic fairs had... fair-ish deals, but something happened around 2016 and Core 2 Whatever and older pretty much disappeared from those unless it's a Mac (in which case it's going to be 2009+ or a G4, nothing before or inbetween)

Anyone can guess at this cause? There's always been a steep and rising fee for selling there but I don't feel that's the main reason, compared to a general loss of confidence in the market, if that makes sense...
(This particularly pisses me off as these events are where, in the mid and late 2000s, many teens like me bought their first own PCs for a 2-digit price)

Ah yes, on small e-commerce you have a bunch* of domestic scalpers, decent prices in continental Europe with annoying shipping costs, and what would have been excellent deals in the UK if they didn't use the global shipping program (which can be a scam of its own, at least from the USA - search online for "8ten1944")

Ryccardo wrote on 2023-03-09, 20:02:

Here it's because the dump "pays" you (as a discount on garbage tax), up to a certain amount per year, if you bother taking stuf […]
Show full quote

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-05, 21:34:

go to any recycling center and you will find "rare and expensive" components galore. And promptly be told they cant be sold to you for some BS reason (even if you offer many times the scrap value)

Here it's because the dump "pays" you (as a discount on garbage tax), up to a certain amount per year, if you bother taking stuff there in person - and most people seem to have learnt that - which of course would be trivial to scam if you could pick stuff back up 🙁

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-07, 12:11:

Plenty of tools exist that can wipe hard drives.

Too slow! I use the write test on Victoria or MHDD for those I sell (especially the former: 3 in 1 erase/test/timestamp, with the "numbering" option) and it's more boring than installing an OS from real optical drive!

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-07, 12:11:

really how common is it for people to go around looking for old PC's to try and find sensitive data?

Little but it's the first thing I did when the used digital video camera I bought came with an unadvertised 32 GB SD 😜

stealthjoe wrote on 2023-03-08, 03:18:

Anything lower than a 945 board is nearly impossible to get. Sites like olx or quikr (local versions of craigslist) hardly have such listings. Also there are many listings for old pc buyers (only buying) who seem to hoard all the old vintage parts but in turn refuse to sell them despite offering good prices. Probably they sell it to the recyclers who in turn also refuse to sell.
There are very few retro parts sellers far away from my place (around 1600 kms), but they mostly have worthless boards/parts but charge ebay prices or even worse . The final nail in the coffin is Ebay. However when the pc boards/cards arrive, expect a 80-100% duty for sure on top of the premium prices paid.

Same here in Italy: it used to be that electronic fairs had... fair-ish deals, but something happened around 2016 and Core 2 Whatever and older pretty much disappeared from those unless it's a Mac (in which case it's going to be 2009+ or a G4, nothing before or inbetween)

Anyone can guess at this cause? There's always been a steep and rising fee for selling there but I don't feel that's the main reason, compared to a general loss of confidence in the market, if that makes sense...
(This particularly pisses me off as these events are where, in the mid and late 2000s, many teens like me bought their first own PCs for a 2-digit price)

Ah yes, on small e-commerce you have a bunch* of domestic scalpers, decent prices in continental Europe with annoying shipping costs, and what would have been excellent deals in the UK if they didn't use the global shipping program (which can be a scam of its own, at least from the USA - search online for "8ten1944")

I know there are a lot of eBay scalpers based out of poorer EU countries that seem to solely exist to scalp vintage electronics to overseas buyers that are paying weith the much stronger USD.

Good luck to them, a lot of them were foisted on them as cast-offs from richer countries back in the day. Earlier "recycling" was just shipping them abroad where they weren't your problem any more. Rumors of 7 year olds pounding them with rocks for raw material reclamation and breathing in the toxic dust put something of a stop to that, which is where it all got bureaucratic, the disposers as responsible orgs and governments want a piece of paper saying that it's guaranteed that that is not happening.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-09, 20:25:

Good luck to them, a lot of them were foisted on them as cast-offs from richer countries back in the day. Earlier "recycling" was just shipping them abroad where they weren't your problem any more. Rumors of 7 year olds pounding them with rocks for raw material reclamation and breathing in the toxic dust put something of a stop to that, which is where it all got bureaucratic, the disposers as responsible orgs and governments want a piece of paper saying that it's guaranteed that that is not happening.

The problem is, as anyone knows this shit is still happening because the government takes a look at that piece of paper, goes "we believe you *wink wink*" and never actually checks that this stuff isnt happening. 90 percent of "change" in the west is change theater, the fact of the matter is we can't consume like we do without third world countries processing the waste from it.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-09, 20:12:

Ryccardo wrote on 2023-03-09, 20:02:

Here it's because the dump "pays" you (as a discount on garbage tax), up to a certain amount per year, if you bother taking stuf […]
Show full quote

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-05, 21:34:

go to any recycling center and you will find "rare and expensive" components galore. And promptly be told they cant be sold to you for some BS reason (even if you offer many times the scrap value)

Here it's because the dump "pays" you (as a discount on garbage tax), up to a certain amount per year, if you bother taking stuff there in person - and most people seem to have learnt that - which of course would be trivial to scam if you could pick stuff back up 🙁

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-07, 12:11:

Plenty of tools exist that can wipe hard drives.

Too slow! I use the write test on Victoria or MHDD for those I sell (especially the former: 3 in 1 erase/test/timestamp, with the "numbering" option) and it's more boring than installing an OS from real optical drive!

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-07, 12:11:

really how common is it for people to go around looking for old PC's to try and find sensitive data?

Little but it's the first thing I did when the used digital video camera I bought came with an unadvertised 32 GB SD 😜

stealthjoe wrote on 2023-03-08, 03:18:

Anything lower than a 945 board is nearly impossible to get. Sites like olx or quikr (local versions of craigslist) hardly have such listings. Also there are many listings for old pc buyers (only buying) who seem to hoard all the old vintage parts but in turn refuse to sell them despite offering good prices. Probably they sell it to the recyclers who in turn also refuse to sell.
There are very few retro parts sellers far away from my place (around 1600 kms), but they mostly have worthless boards/parts but charge ebay prices or even worse . The final nail in the coffin is Ebay. However when the pc boards/cards arrive, expect a 80-100% duty for sure on top of the premium prices paid.

Same here in Italy: it used to be that electronic fairs had... fair-ish deals, but something happened around 2016 and Core 2 Whatever and older pretty much disappeared from those unless it's a Mac (in which case it's going to be 2009+ or a G4, nothing before or inbetween)

Anyone can guess at this cause? There's always been a steep and rising fee for selling there but I don't feel that's the main reason, compared to a general loss of confidence in the market, if that makes sense...
(This particularly pisses me off as these events are where, in the mid and late 2000s, many teens like me bought their first own PCs for a 2-digit price)

Ah yes, on small e-commerce you have a bunch* of domestic scalpers, decent prices in continental Europe with annoying shipping costs, and what would have been excellent deals in the UK if they didn't use the global shipping program (which can be a scam of its own, at least from the USA - search online for "8ten1944")

I know there are a lot of eBay scalpers based out of poorer EU countries that seem to solely exist to scalp vintage electronics to overseas buyers that are paying weith the much stronger USD.

Most developing european countries actually push their items to richer european countries, especially since USD is weaker even if not by much nowadays, kazakhstan though always goes for dollars.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-03-09, 16:39:

I know, it's not an solution to this problem, but.. If everything fails, there's still an FPGA implementation of a 80486 core. […]
Show full quote

I know, it's not an solution to this problem, but..
If everything fails, there's still an FPGA implementation of a 80486 core.
It could be expanded to Pentium level, perhaps.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer

That way, there will still be "real" hardware to tinker with in the future.
For those who still care about 80s/90s tech.

It's an acceptable solution until we can print vintage CPUs on glass/plastic.

That's an excellent point. However, remember that FPGAs are only as good as their cores, and it takes a lot of retro- enthusiasts to create a 100% accurate core for an FPGA. With the MISTer itself, some cores are nearly flawless, like its C64, NES and (SNES?) cores. Others are nearly useless, woefully incomplete, like its Apple II core.

So, FPGAs have extremely high potential to perfectly simulate the real hardware, but they require a very dedicated contingent of extremely knowledgable software programmers. They will die off eventually, and we'll be left with no new blood or anyone else to pick up the reins.

zyzzle wrote on 2023-03-10, 03:29:

That's an excellent point. However, remember that FPGAs are only as good as their cores, and it takes a lot of retro- enthusiast […]
Show full quote

Jo22 wrote on 2023-03-09, 16:39:

I know, it's not an solution to this problem, but.. If everything fails, there's still an FPGA implementation of a 80486 core. […]
Show full quote

I know, it's not an solution to this problem, but..
If everything fails, there's still an FPGA implementation of a 80486 core.
It could be expanded to Pentium level, perhaps.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer

That way, there will still be "real" hardware to tinker with in the future.
For those who still care about 80s/90s tech.

It's an acceptable solution until we can print vintage CPUs on glass/plastic.

That's an excellent point. However, remember that FPGAs are only as good as their cores, and it takes a lot of retro- enthusiasts to create a 100% accurate core for an FPGA.
With the MISTer itself, some cores are nearly flawless, like its C64, NES and (SNES?) cores. Others are nearly useless, woefully incomplete, like its Apple II core.

So, FPGAs have extremely high potential to perfectly simulate the real hardware, but they require a very dedicated contingent of extremely knowledgable software programmers.
They will die off eventually, and we'll be left with no new blood or anyone else to pick up the reins.

Thanks! You're welcome. I simply hope that the existing FPGA "code" can be trans-piled to other FPGA platforms in the future, or that it can still serve as teaching material.
I also wouldn't write off the possibility of re-production of classic ICs yet. Sharp had printed a Z80 core on glass at the turn of the millennium.
https://www.msx.org/news/hardware/en/z80-made-out-glass
https://www.idealine.info/sharpmz/z80glass.htm

If the final size isn't an issue, it might be feasible to print circuits at home or at a Maker Faire which were originally made in a dimension of roughly 1 Micron (= 1 000 nm, current die size is 22 nm to 5 nm).
Or maybe, the same companies which provide PCB etching service can do that. Send in your die file via e-mail and you get a big transparent SMD chip back via snail mail.

An 80286 (1.5 µ) with merely 134 000 transistors should be doable, even if the printed die would end up being three or four times the size.
If the chosen speed isn't so high (say 10 MHz and below), it might be really possible within the next twenty years or so.

Classic chips like NE555, LM386 or LM741 or FM sound chips might also be preserved digitally that way.
Mostly gone, but not forgotten. So to say.

PS: For those of you who need a 7 segment Turbo display.. They can be re-created.
I've just recently found a tutorial about how to make a simple HI / LO display at home.
It's being described on this site: https://oldcomputer.info/hacks/ledhilo/index.htm
User wiretap has made a modern/more sophisticated version, too: Fabricating a New Turbo Display

Edit: The 80286 is just an example. A 80386/i486 or a compatible chip might also be within reach.
The reason I mentioned the 80286 was because it was successfully being cloned by poor East Germany at the end of cold war.
Which was roughly 30 years ago. As an optimist, I think that in the next 20 years, non-commercial lithography could be on same level, at least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U80601

Edit: I don't mean to downplay the recycling situation, of course. It's far from ideal and worth being discussed.
I just mean to say that not everything is lost yet. Even if nearly all authentic hardware is gone at some point,
we can still repair what we have and re-create what we need. On a small, private scale, at the very least. 😀

CPUs aren't really the problem, on top of being fairly durable up to the 2000s, and several being in existence per motherboard in the first place, they're most likely to be saved if everything else is scrapped. There are however challenges in getting FPGA to emulate core logic AND get to to connect to several hundred pins and provide DRAM interfaces and buses externally.... such that it is found easier just to bundle it all inside a big enough FPGA.

I would suggest maybe using high speed serialization tech to buffer all the CPU address and data lines, such that core logic could be emulated on ARM cores and/or small and fast FPGAs without having layout problems. Not sure if there would be latency issues though.

If you have all the equations to design a complete computer in FPGA you might as well just do it in software.

And as far as collecting Pentium 4 systems go there will always be a market for high end Abit boards especially since they can still boot Windows 98se/ME and have drivers for them. I mean if you collect AGP gaming cards you need something to run them in. While there were millions of P4 systems made most were junky OEM ones that get recycled they second they got obsolete or suffered from capacitor plague death.

This is an interesting topic.

As many have said, only small percentage gets "saved" and I believe that fraction is only getting smaller because the total volume of manufactured units is just so huge. Reasons for throwing away fully working equipment are many, but one factor is undeniably the fact that modern equipment is so damn difficult if not impossible or economically viable to repair nowadays: something breaks down, you buy a new one. Other is just blind consumerism and the reason that nowadays people don't appreciate computers anymore. There is no magic left, they are everywhere and as disposable as plastic bags. It is sad.

However, I'm not that worried about PCs when it comes to the preservation of out computing history and heritage. There are simply so many of these systems made, that although only fraction is preserved, it will be enough. Only some niche stuff that has been ever manufactured in low quantity is in danger. These are usually something that is aimed for some specific professional use and hobbyists aren't perhaps even aware of them or they have no interest in it. I also think that retro computing as a hobby isn't going away and we have globally many museums dedicated to this stuff. Software side could be better, but archive.org and countless of other specialized sites dedicated to things like demoscene are really improving the situation for out digital heritage. Sad thing is, of course, that so much is already lost for ever, but things could be a lot worse.

There are still huge blind spots and I'm especially worried about one aspect of retro computing: Unix workstations. Yes, hardware still exists and is pretty damn pricey, but because they were made for professional use, most of them were recycled from businesses when they became obsolete, sometimes after a long period of time. And their death was extremely sudden, which most likely plays big part why big part of their history is already thrown out of the window and is only getting worse. There are other factors too. Many systems had lots of proprietary stuff starting from keyboards and mice, so even if you get functioning box, you may not be able to do anything with it. All this means that they can be insanely difficult to keep alive (I have one Sun WS, so I know something about the subject first hand) and things get more complicated because so much of the documentation (which is necessary in many cases to get these back in working order, such as setting up NVRAM of an unit from obscure console) and, even more so, historically significant software is already erased from the existence. And even if software does exist, so many of it requires licensing over network or by using some dongle. In the case of licensing servers, pretty much every server has been dead for at least a decade or so. No pirated versions of these software exist and many of the developers have come and gone or merged. There are very few efforts around the world who even try to maintain software released for these systems and one reason may be that without the original manufacturers of these systems, it is almost an impossible task. And former powerhouses of Unix world are either gone (SGI) or current manufacturers don't care one flying f about these systems, that is Oracle (Sun) and HP (HP, DEC).

Here is a great write up about the subject and I agree with him fully:
https://www.osnews.com/story/135605/the-mass- … x-workstations/

These systems were the cutting edge of workstation technology from the late 80s up to the turn of the millennium and much of their legacy is already gone and nothing can't bring it back.

Yah the dotcom boom did them no favors, overleveraged buyers/users of them and overconfident suppliers of them. The big names with fingers in multiple pies clung on, but it killed everyone else.

High prices are the symptom not the disease, like temperature rising when you've got an infection, it's also curative, in the body it hopes to kill the invader, in liquid markets it hopes to pull in supply and allocate available supply to those most willing to pay. If it's rare and worthless, that's when you've got a big problem as everything will be discarded and disregarded before you know it. However I've got an idea of what/who the niche users are... research and scientific labs, they are very clingy to their tech, often it is running some million dollar equipment that has had custom interfaces made for it to the likes of Sun and Apollo systems which then act as data presentation to the Phds. Universities probably have a lot hiding in their postgrad areas... and will pay $5000 for a unit rather than lose the use of a $500,000 analyser or similar. Some of these half a room pieces of equipment, really expensive plumbing a lot of them, are getting replaced by desktop size "microfluidics" and other recent tech, run by raspberry pi type boards.

Anyway, I predict another price dump when that revolution is fully played out... it's like that situation around early 2000s where some old x86 machines that could run CNCs were commanding thousand dollar price tags. But then as emulation got good, the arduino/pi board phenomenon caught hold etc, where these machines could be run from something other than an ancient 486 with a DOS program, the prices in the early 2010s for those particular machines dropped a bit... until 2015 or so when retro awareness accelerated and prices of that era stuff generally went up again. Anyway, had first extinction yes, what about second extinction?

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-11, 01:06:

Yah the dotcom boom did them no favors, overleveraged buyers/users of them and overconfident suppliers of them. The big names with fingers in multiple pies clung on, but it killed everyone else.

High prices are the symptom not the disease, like temperature rising when you've got an infection, it's also curative, in the body it hopes to kill the invader, in liquid markets it hopes to pull in supply and allocate available supply to those most willing to pay. If it's rare and worthless, that's when you've got a big problem as everything will be discarded and disregarded before you know it. However I've got an idea of what/who the niche users are... research and scientific labs, they are very clingy to their tech, often it is running some million dollar equipment that has had custom interfaces made for it to the likes of Sun and Apollo systems which then act as data presentation to the Phds. Universities probably have a lot hiding in their postgrad areas... and will pay $5000 for a unit rather than lose the use of a $500,000 analyser or similar. Some of these half a room pieces of equipment, really expensive plumbing a lot of them, are getting replaced by desktop size "microfluidics" and other recent tech, run by raspberry pi type boards.

Anyway, I predict another price dump when that revolution is fully played out... it's like that situation around early 2000s where some old x86 machines that could run CNCs were commanding thousand dollar price tags. But then as emulation got good, the arduino/pi board phenomenon caught hold etc, where these machines could be run from something other than an ancient 486 with a DOS program, the prices in the early 2010s for those particular machines dropped a bit... until 2015 or so when retro awareness accelerated and prices of that era stuff generally went up again. Anyway, had first extinction yes, what about second extinction?

I think the main thing with maintaining the legacy of different systems is not necessarily the hardware, but software. Sure, after you have gotten your Unix box up and running, you can install old OS on it, but what do you do with it? Good example is my Sun WS, a beautiful machine with dual 10k SCSI drives and dual Creator 3D graphics cards. I got it back up and running few years ago (it was a pain), but after that it has been pretty much sitting in the closet. These systems were used for example for engineering and 3D modeling, but I simply couldn’t find any interesting software for it which would take advantage of system’s capabilities. SPARC server software is easily available, but there is no point running that system as a home server (too slow by modern standards). It is by far the most fascinating computer in my collection, yet at the same time the most boring.

Old PCs have the advantage that there is so much different kind of software developed for it and which was widely available while good backwards compatibility ensured that software could stay relevant for a long time. In the end, every vintage computing platform lives and breaths through their software library. Obscure systems with limited software library don’t interest but only the few die hards in the vintage computing scene, because most people don’t see those systems worth their time and/or money. These old Unix WSs could be interesting systems, and definitely worth preservation, but the problem is that so much is already lost.

Yup software really plays a part, back in the 90s I got a small haul of Apple II stuff, the web was just getting going, and they were very yesterdays news, couldn't find much info, getting software seemed not to be possible unless you were in a large metro with an Apple II club that was still just clinging to life. So I didn't get anything done with them, retro dead zone for years. Let's call it "retro winter", the period where a machine is ignored by bulk of it's original users, and hasn't found wider enthusiastic base of retro adopters. Another machine I got in it's retro winter was a MicroVax III, very hard to find anything for/do anything with. This was before OpenVMS etc had much/any traction. Unfortunately life parted me from those machines before their new spring came about.

Right now I have a CoCo2 sitting, there was only a few dozen commercial titles for it, and only a handful are a little interesting to me, so motivation to do much with it was lacking. However, there is a lot of enthusiasm around OS9 and homebrew for that. Really it means that the machine needs mods and out of era expansion to run this only vaguely attached to era software. I am thinking it's going to be like that with the main part of Unix WS, they will get enthusiasts who want to give them modern storage interfaces and run some linux or freeBSD variant on them.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-11, 15:42:

I am thinking it's going to be like that with the main part of Unix WS, they will get enthusiasts who want to give them modern storage interfaces and run some linux or freeBSD variant on them.

Sure, that can happen and people are doing that. I also tested BSD and latest Solaris 10 (11 doesn't support my Ultra 60 anymore) on my box too, but that doesn't bring back the stuff that has already been lost. Hardware might get a new life with tinkerers and enthusiasts, like some mini computers do today, but the real shame is that the true legacy of those systems is already pretty much lost. Unix WSs are a good example of how we can pretty much lose one whole branch of our digital history in a very short period of time. These systems had their prime in the latter part of the 90s, a time when internet was a thing and storage space was already relatively inexpensive. Still much of the software is already gone or at least unusable, people who maintained and developed for these systems have all moved on. All because the demise was so fast and corporations that manufactured and marketed these systems didn't see any reason to preserve or support the preservation of these systems after they became EOL in their support contracts.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-03-11, 09:53:

I think the main thing with maintaining the legacy of different systems is not necessarily the hardware, but software. Sure, after you have gotten your Unix box up and running, you can install old OS on it, but what do you do with it?

I think this is the problem. It really limits the appeal for even those that are interested. Something like the Data General's on Tech Tangents youtube channel would be awesome
https://youtu.be/mBssIIRGkOw

But how many people have the space to keep such a thing that has really limited "entertainment" value and unlike other hobbies you can't really pass it on once you do get your few months/years worth of fun out of it as no one else want's it.

I like olds servers which are typically not saved (mine are all come from work) and installing old versions of Windows Server or Novel, etc but once all set up they only get turned on 2-3 times a year?
With a move to the other side of the world coming up, I can't justify keeping them and doubt I'll replace them once moved, so one less "server museum" of sorts.