Re: The risks of retro computing Message #13 Posted by Howard Owen on 2 Aug 2006, 6:13 p.m., in response to message #1 by Bruce Horrocks
This guy has to be a software engineer. No offense to anyone on this list that would place themselves in that pigeon hole, and recognizing that generalizations about the discipline are likely to fail with respect to any given individual, particularly one that hangs out here, and apologizing inline for long, run-on sentences, (and for parenthetical, but non-grammatical emoticons, which AOL did not invent 8), taking all that into account, someone who lives for software is far more likely to miss the value of a hardware restoration or reconstruction. (Whoa, what was that? A period.)
Think about, for example, the Analytical Engine. (I thought someone had attempted a partial construction based on Babbage's design, but I can't find a reference in Wikipedia.) Would a physically embodied Analytical Engine have a different worth than its designs, or the plans for a Turing-Complete programming language demonstrated by Lady Ada, or simulations of the device on modern computers? Of course it would have different worth. Apart from the working out of practical difficulties that Babbage faced in the construction, the artifact itself would be an invaluable addition to any museum. (I would love to hear the thing in action. Yes, I've read The Difference Engine.)
But I imagine that a lot of greenhouse gases would be emitted by the machining of parts, and the transporting, assembly and presentation of the results, not to mention the grave danger of crushed limbs the sure-to-be-impressive weight of the thing would pose.
OK, so there never was a complete Analytical Engine, so the construction would be new, and therefore perhaps more valuable in the estimation of the Risks author. What about the Difference Engine, then? I saw a reconstruction of that in IBM's Pallisade's NJ facility. Does that artifact add anything to the world over and above the ideas it embodies? I think the answers are the same as for the Analytical Engine.
The point is, old machines disappear into the relentless maw of ever-accelerating progress. Conserving working computers obviously has merit. Even if the fantastically compressed history of the Computer Age gets overshadowed by subsequent advances in other areas (like Biology) or by subsequent failures of Civilization (such as "take-your-pick-of-doomsday-scenarios") the conservation of these artifacts will have worth to someone, if only to the optimistic conservators themselves.
Regards Howard
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