>
> >There comes a time when it's no longer viable to
keep
> >old machines
> >running.
>
> Like my pre-1902 Pratt & Whitney precision bench
> lathe? I advise you NOT to utter that sort of language
Oooh!. That sounds very nics (and yes, it should be used)
> Point taken, but computers don't fall into the same
> category as rare ancient paraphernalia. Granted some
In an earlier message, old computers were compared to
classic
cars/motorbikes. I can think of one very important
difference here. A
motor vehicle, could, alas, be involved in a collision,
which would
totally ruin it, both for use and as a museum exhibit. But
it's rare for
a component failure in a computer to make it useless as a
static exhibit.
An example. One day the BPC hybrid processor module in my
9825 is going
to fail. It's a custom part that I can't easily recreate,
and can't
repair. When that happens, if I can't find a replacement,
the machine is
no longer going to be useful as a computer. But it certainly
can be used
as a static exhibit. And while it's still useable, I see no
harm in
using it. If I never used it, the processor module could
still fail, just
sitting on the shelf.
-tony
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