Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <3E398C48.75FC@earthlink.net>,
Lee Hart  <leeahart@earthlink.net> wrote:
 
> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>> Of course, today's appliance computers have performance and
>> capabilites far beyond what those home hobbyists could produce back
>> then.  So if the capabilities and performance are what's important,
>> then today's situation makes you a winner: today you get much more
>> for a much lower price.
> 
> 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.
 
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!
 
>> But if the capabilities and performance is unimportant and the
>> important thing is to construct something yourself - then why not go
>> ahead and do it?
> 
> You can... but it's gotten considerably more difficult. And, it
> continues to get more difficult every day.
 
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.....
 
> I referred to a "golden age" for the electronics hobbyist. By this, I
> mean a time when as a kid, I could get broken electronics devices for
> free; take them apart and figure out how they worked, and then either
> fix them, or use the parts to make something else.
 
I rarely got them for free but usually had to pay a small amount of
money.  But you can still get such stuff: last year I got four
radio receivers built with vacuum tubes; two worked, the other two
didn't and I intend to try to fix those two.
 
> But, we've gone from plug-in vacuum tubes and a tester in every
> drugstore... to plug-in transistors that you had to test yourself
> with an ohmmeter... to soldered-in transistors that you could at
> least remove and re-use... to soldered-in ICs that are very difficult
> to remove... to surface-mount chips that are essentially impossible
> to replace.
 
True -- and even though fixing these things are impossible,
constructing them have gotten much much cheaper.  As a result,
you can buy electronic equipment with perhaps 10 times the
performance for 1/10 of the price - these figures of course
vary wildly between different electronic equipment: building
a home computer with discrete transistors or vacuum tubes is
just infeasible - or would you want to pay, say, $3,000 to
$10,000 for a calculator able to perform only basic arithmetic?
That would be likely prices if they were constructed from
discrete components.
 
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....
 
> Every aspect of electronics is moving through this progression.
> It's as if we had a ladder to climb up to become proficient in
> electronics, but have now decided we are so high we don't need
> any of those lower rungs, and have cut them all off. Fine for
> us at the top -- but what do people at the bottom do?
 
If they work in the industry, these people construct the chips.
Yep, some people have to do that too, or else we at the top
would have no chips to use.
 
And hobbyists gan always get into retro-electronics: they certainly
won't bring any progress, they may not even be able to maintain
status quo -- but they'll definitely ha e a lot of fun!!!!
 
>> It's not cutting edge technology, but so what? The capabilities
>> and performance were unimportant anyway -- the important thing
>> is that you enjoy what you're doing.
> 
> Most of the greatest discoveries of mankind were made by people
> who were just fooling around, but had a dream of something better.
> Of course their first gadgets were crude, and worked worse than
> the alternatives.  But if they kept working at it, improving it,
> and perfecting it, the world got a significant new invention.
 
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.
 
>> There are plenty of home construction projects you could undertake.
>> You could get into e.g. model railroading, ham radio station
>> construction, telescope construction, house building...
> 
> Quite true. All of these are well supported by hobbyists, clubs,
> businesses supplying parts, magazines, etc.
> 
>> And even computer construction: you could for instance build your
>> own Apple II -- the schematics are available, and the components
>> are standard components.
> 
> Ah, but this would be a vastly more difficult undertaking. The support
> structure to do it is gone. In the "golden age", you *could* build your
> own Apple II clone, better and cheaper than the original -- and many
> people did!
 
I was one of those who did that!
 
And I see no reason why you still can't do it.  You could construct
an Apple II PCB motherboard, and you could get the components, and
then just solder the thing together!!!  Of course you can no longer
do it "better and cheaper" nor "worse and more expensive" than the
original, because there are no longer any originals for sale!!!!
 
-- 
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Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
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