Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[Lee Hart <leeahart@earthlink.net>]

Lee Hart said:
>> The staus quo will always be the easiest and cheapest solution. But,
>> it doesn't get you any farther ahead. You just get comfortable where
>> you are.

Paul Schlyter replied:
> OK -- but at least you'll be ahead of those who devote themselves
> to retrocomputing.... they won't merely not move ahead - they'll
> move backwards!

It all depends on what you do with your "retrocomputer". If all you do
is build a copy of an old Apple II to run the same old games, that's
nostalgia.

But if you do it to learn how computers work and how to build
electronics, you may be learning skills that are useful for life. Or,
you might do it to develop some brilliant new idea that will
revolutionize the future world.

> It's not that impossible --- you can still buy discrete components
> such as transistors, resistors, etc.  And there are still plenty of
> circuit diagrams available, on the Net as well as in books.  If you
> want to construct your own circuits, you could even learn
> electronics.....

As an experienced engineer, I know where to buy the parts, get the
circuit diagrams, and find the books and magazines to teach me how to do
it. But I didn't know all that stuff when I built my first computer.

I saw an article in Popular Electronics magazine to build the computer.
(Today, Popular Electronics is gone; there are no magazines on the
newsstand with "how to" plans to build a computer).

I bought the parts at Radio Shack. (Today, they don't carry the parts to
do it).

I had built Heathkits to learn how to solder, read resistor color codes,
troubleshoot, etc. (Kits are largely gone, and the ones that remain
teach you little if anything).

There was a local computer club, full of other people I could ask for
help. (Computer clubs are now essentially gone, and nobody at them
builds anything anyway).

> even though fixing these things is impossible, constructing
> them has gotten much much cheaper. As a result, you can buy
> electronic equipment with perhaps 10 times the performance
> for 1/10 of the price.

But, there are lots of missing rungs at the bottom of the ladder. An
experienced engineer or technician can build things cheaper and easier.
But not someone starting out! Try to remember yourself when you got
started in computers and electronics. If you were at that level today,
would you have been able to start again? Or, would it have been so hard
that you would have given up and pursured some other interest instead?

> You could add printed circuit boards here too: they make
> modifications of the circuit much harder.  It was much
> easier to modify the circuits when all wires were mounted
> individually....

If you know how, it is easier to get PC boards than ever before. But,
beginners don't know how. And nobody is showing them!

> The age of the solitary genius is pretty much gone, I guess.
> Most significant inventions today are made by people working
> within large corporations or other organisations, where they
> get access to the resources they need.

Really? What "significant inventions" have large corporations recently
produced? They mostly seem so focussed on the bottom line that they have
largely eliminated R&D, and only make slow incremental improvements on
the status quo (though they patent them and loudly trumpet them as
"breakthroughs").

When I do hear about a significant breakthrough coming from a large
corporation, it is often make by one person working in *opposition* to
the corporate bureaucracy, and he gets punished for it. The guy that
invented the blue LED at Nichia comes to mind.
-- 
Lee A. Hart                Ring the bells that still can ring
814 8th Ave. N.            Forget your perfect offering
Sartell, MN 56377 USA      There is a crack in everything
leeahart_at_earthlink.net  That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen