Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <3E3AEAA1.34DB@earthlink.net>,
Lee Hart  <leeahart@earthlink.net> wrote:
> 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.
 
...or if you run the same old word processor, Appleworks, or whatever...
 
Now, is there anyone who does something else with their old Apple II?
Any new software, or hardware, development going on for the Apple II
????
 
> 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.
 
True -- but if you learn how electronics worked 25+ years ago, then
you'll still end up being behind those who learn how modern
electronics works.
 
> Or, you might do it to develop some brilliant new idea that will
> revolutionize the future world.
 
And make it run on Apple II hardware?  C'mon on!  That's just as
absurd as if Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had tried building their
Apple I based on ENIAC hardware !!!!!!!  Yep, it's now some 27 years
since the Apple I came into being, in 1976.  If we go back another 27
years, we'll be at 1949, and then ENIAC was still in use!!!!
 
If your new idea really is so brilliant that it has the potential to
revolutionize the future world, then it would be MUCH better to
implement it on a modern microcontroller than on old clunky Apple II
hardware.  There are development systems for these microcontrollers
which aren't impossibly expensive even for private budgets.
 
Now, I'm not trying to belittle retrocomputing, but merely trying to
put things in perspective.  No matter what you think, retrocomputing
is NOT cutting edge technological development!  Retrocomputing is a
kind of museum activity -- its benefit is to preserve for future
generations what computing once was.
 
>> 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.
 
When you built your first computer, the Internet was nowhere as
widely accessible as it is today.  That's a big difference.
 
Also, your first electronic construction project should not be a
computer: it's just too complex, even if it's a 25-year old 8-bit
microcomputer.  It should be something simpler, for instance an AM
radio, or a stereo amplifier, so you have a chance to understand how
it works.
 
> 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).
 
...and when Popular Electronics DID publish plans to build a computer,
they no longer published plans to build a TV set, or a crystal radio....
 
During my school days I once had a project called "The Transistor",
and at the end of that I presented for my class a 3-transistor device
built on a piece of board, which could do a few different things.
One thing it could do was to work as an AM radio.  So at the start of
the presentation, I let that device receive our local radio station.
My son could not do that -- OK, he could probably build the device,
but it wouldn't receive anything because almost all our AM radio
stations have been closed down; we only have FM radio now.  And DAB
(Digital Audio Radio) radio, which almost no-one listens to because
the receivers are far too expensive (some $1,000 and up) -- but the
DAB transmitters are still maintained because it's believed to be
"the future".
 
As Bob Dylan sang: "...for the times they are a-changing...".
 
> I bought the parts at Radio Shack. (Today, they don't carry the parts
> to do it).
 
If you ask, they might be able to tell you where you could buy this
stuff.  Or else you could use Google and seach for e.g. "discrete
electronic components" -- that will probably give a lot of
interesting hits.
 
> 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).
 
Heathkit is gone too .... I too bought a Heathkit kit once, but mostly
I bought discrete components for my electronic projects.
 
> 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).
 
Perhaps you should try a ham radio club instead?  They're still
here, even though they're declining too.  And ham rigs are getting
more and more like computers....
 
>> 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.
 
It's not missing -- it's merely package into the chips....
 
> An experienced engineer or technician can build things cheaper and
> easier.
 
:-) ....not quite!  Technicians in solitude don't do that anymore.
You need to be a small industry at least, and you need a large
enough series to get some economy into it.
 
> But not someone starting out!
 
Not even an experienced technician could get these things cheaper by
constructing them himself.  That would be like building your own car
from spare parts you buy -- such a car would end up being horribly
expensive!  And in addition you'd have to pay a lot more money to
have people test it for you, so you could get permission to use that
vehicle on public roads!!!!!
 
> 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?
 
Of course life was simpler earlier.  Today it would be very hard for
a beginner to build his own computer for scratch, a computer having
the capabilities people expect from modern computers.  OTOH 20 years
ago such a person wouldn't even dream of trying it, because such an
ambition would have been considered impossible, since the hardware
with such capabilities just didn't exist -- or at least it was very
bulky and horribly expensive.  The Cray 1 supercomputer was released
in 1976, the same year the Apple 1 was released.  The Cray 1 (which
ran at 80 MHz clockspeed) had a performance comparable to a 500 MHz
Pentium III.  So, yes, Pentium III performance WAS available when the
Apple 1 was released, but at a huge cost: the Cray 1 did cost a
million dollars (in 1976 prices), and required its own hall, plus a
staff to run and maintain it.  This was definitely well outside
the hobbyist budget.
 
>> 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!
 
So why don't you put up a web site which shows these beginners
how very easy this is nowadays?
 
However, my comment wasn't about making new PC boards, but about
modifying existing circuits: this is much harder if the circuit
is on a PC board.
 
>> 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?
 
The GSM and UMTS cellphone systems, to name two well-known examples.
 
In the 1960's, the German company Telefunken invented the PAL color
TV system, which improved considerably on the earlier NTSC (Never The
Same Color) system and became the standard in at least half of
Europe; it's now used in many other countries as well, including
countries in South America (Brazil has it's own unique variety of
525-line PAL).
 
The floppy disk was invented by IBM, originally as a cheap
alternative to punched cards -- at the time no-one knew this would
become a very important storage medium for personal computers.
The original 8" floppies were the incrementally improved to
5.25" and 3.5" floppies -- interestingly, the smaller floppies
could also store more data!!!!
 
And then we have the CD and the DVD -- neither was invented by
some "genius in a basement".
 
The Internet was originally envisioned and created by the US DoD --
they probably didn't have the faintest idea how ubiqutous this
network would have become some decades into the future.
 
The car industry is probably shock full of various inventions (e.g.
ABS brakes and self-inflating "crash pillows"), most of which
customers aren't aware of.
 
And then we have the medical industry: consider for instance drugs
against AIDS -- they aren't invented by some brilliant teenager who
got a "chemistry kit" for christmas....
 
> 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").
 
Genuine breakthroughs are of course very rare.  But just because
something isn't a genuine breakthrough doesn't mean it's insignificant,
as you here seem to want to claim.  A large number of incremental
improvements does make a lot of a difference.
 
> 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.
 
Another example from the medical industry is Astra-Zeneca's success
drug LOSEC, which before the breakthrough had been an internal
project for over a decade, and which was almost cancelled several
times.
 
And how could it be otherwise?  Buerocrats aren't inventors.  And a
breakthrough is something not expected by most people.  If some
important development does get support from the corporate buerocracy,
you would probably define it as an "incremental improvement", not a
"breakthrough".  A breakthrough implies an obstacle or a conflict of
some kind which is won.
 
And you must also see this from the buerocrat's point of view:
supposed you had some millions available which you wanted to use to
finance research and development in some field you had no expertise
in.  In front of you there were 20 guys, each claiming to have a
brilliant idea which could revolutionize the world in the future.