Technician keeps computer made in 1959 still humming along

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201907280007.html

by turrini • 7 years ago

284 109 7 years ago

davesmith19834• 7 years ago

“If the computer does not work, it will become a mere ornament,”

I own some old kit that I like to keep working mainly some Amiga and Atari ST machines and he's 100% right. Unless people see what they are doing they literally assume they are some sort of keyboard.

walshemj• 7 years ago

I recall being told that when I worked for British Telecom they caught some cleaners stealing just the what they where thought where computers but where in fact just the key boards :-)

Probably in Manchester as that was a bit of a thing up there -Later on I helped refit an office for the third time after they had been cleaned out twice.

davesmith19834• 7 years ago

We have some cleaners come in and they always constantly rearrange the keyboard, desk monitors etc. Which normally causes a few groans in the morning as everything has been moved. One guy was having a moan about it and I said "You know the women that clean this probably have never used a computer other than maybe their phone?".

xiphmont• 7 years ago

My god. That machine is beautiful.

jdsully2• 7 years ago

Its one of the reasons I wrote a port of my database for my IMSAI 8080 [1]. You only think you know a machine until you try to use it. From experience I can say emulators are just not faithful to the actual experience of the physical hardware. They are too fast and too perfect.

The other nice thing about these old machines is you can understand the whole thing. You get a better idea of what is fundamental and what is just fashion.

[1] https://github.com/JohnSully/KeyDB_Z80

HillaryBriss• 7 years ago

They are too fast and too perfect.

IDK. The android emulators I run on my Mac sure don't seem perfect. For one thing, scrolling a RecyclerView up and down using the mouse doesn't always work right. Gesture detection seems to lag or miss events sometimes. Working with a physical android device is often more stable and "solid" IME.

OTOH android emulators do seem pretty fast.

jdsully2• 7 years ago

At this vintage of machine we're talking about things like pulling individual RAM chips which have gone bad, and hardware that is just too slow to even keep up with 9600 baud datastreams - despite the fact you wrote it all in assembly and hand optimized it.

Not to mention the fun of playing with front panel switches. I built an emulator for one long before I acquired my IMSAI. They did not behave at all how I expected. Even more interesting the front panels are not synchronous on these "hobby" machines from the 70s but instead are timed by RC circuits that are supposed to be "close enough" to the CPUs clock.

Not all of these problems are from age (although that has an effect), the hardware was pretty flaky even when new.

Retro-Reboot• 7 years ago

A Mechanical Marvel

cosmodisk6• 7 years ago

While not even close to what this guy does,I do run my IBM thinkpad every now and then,which is probably about 20 years old.I reinstalled Linux recently and it just works..The keyboard is still lightyears better than most of that crap one could find in most of today's laptops.. What the guy does with the computer is amazing and I'm really glad the management allow him to carry on with it.

Aperocky• 7 years ago

It's a lot easier to have better keyboard when space and weight is not a concern.

CamperBob2• 7 years ago

Oh, those were concerns back then, too. They just weren't the only concerns, as they are now.

cosmodisk6• 7 years ago

Can only agree to certain extent.Lenovo ThinkPads retain exceptionally good keyboard design despite being wafer thin.I have a bulky Toshiba made in 2015 and the keyboard is just very so so. At work I've got XPS 13 and the keyboard is really nice,so ultimately its down to the industrial designers.

TeMPOraL• 7 years ago

It's not like the parts have become bigger over the decades. With today's tech, you could easily make a laptop with a quality keyboard, with a form factor reminiscent of those old ones, packed full with modern hardware at fraction of the weight... that is, if manufacturers weren't optimizing for vanity metrics at the expense of utility.

xur17• 7 years ago

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad X1, and I'm really happy with the keyboard. Had a Macbook for several years, and almost always used it with an external keyboard because of the horrible built in one.

raxxorrax• 7 years ago

On the other hand I think the focus on convertibles is a complete failure. We order a surface here and there but it isn't really something you would want to work with very long compared to a classic design. I also like exchangeable batteries without having to lose warranty. These are service parts ffs.

The market for laptops did shrink significantly due to phones, but I know a lot of people that still prefer to use a classic laptop for home use.

So while the market did shrink, the rest was almost entirely destroyed by bad design decisions.

I still don't know why people use devices like iPads, it is a complete mystery for me. They are as useful as tramp stamps.

I couldn't care less about weight or dimensions if that means I could get high quality parts. Not I don't get them and some models are still beyond 1000$...

TrackerFF• 7 years ago

My first employer still has a Win 95 machine running for some very specific EE CAD software, for no other reason that it still does the job, the company that made it closed shop years ago, and he's very productive with it.

I suspect it's gonna be there 'til the day he closes shop, or he runs out of parts for the computer.

mehrdadn5• 7 years ago

Would a VM not work for this?

cosmodisk6• 7 years ago

I did use some very interesting software over the years and I can absolutely relate to this. For instance,I used to run Alias Studio,which wasn't even part of Autodesk at the time,which is obviously a bit obsolete by now but I'm pretty sure that there are still some shops out there running it on old machines,as the software is really powerful,not to mention the licensing costs back in the day( I think it used to be $100K per desktop)...

amiga_500• 7 years ago

I have a working amiga 500. Must be over 25 years old now, nearer 30.

rxhernandez2• 7 years ago

Same; except it's a Dell Inspiron that's about 16-18 years old. It's outlasted a couple of my thinkpads but that's probably because I've taken those thinkpads places I would have never taken the Inspiron.

mrslave• 7 years ago

Reminds me of "A Commodore 64 Is Still Being Used to Run an Auto Shop in Poland (gizmodo.com)"[1] though I was not able to afford such a luxury when I was young.

Every decade or so I boot an old DEC Alpha. Last time I dist-upgraded Debian (woody to etch?) and everything worked - if a tad slow.

The power of nostalgia.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12604414

xelxebar• 7 years ago

Speaking of, I'm trying to get my hands on a T400s Thinkpad, but not having much luck finding these units.

I plan on flashing it with libreboot and want to give guixsd a try as a daily driver.

uberalex• 7 years ago

I apologise if I've failed a reading comprehension check, but did the article say what the computer was used for?

Gene_Parmesan• 7 years ago

"The FACOM128B greatly contributed to technological advancements during the period of Japan’s high economic growth from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. The computer was used in the design of camera lenses and the YS-11 plane, Japan’s first passenger aircraft developed after the end of World War II."

mirimir4• 7 years ago

I suspect that parent wonders what it does now. Which is likely ~nothing. But I am curious how it compares with current machines. Comparable to an i5 desktop? Or to a smartphone?

arbuge• 7 years ago

Brought to mind this story:

organsnyder• 7 years ago

My guess is that this computer is no longer in service, or soon won't be (we passed a school millage for building upgrades not too long ago).

Hamuko• 7 years ago

Having watched and listened to the video, the phrase "still humming along" is definitely a misnomer.

ilaksh2• 7 years ago

Still clicking along?

rbanffy4• 7 years ago

Indeed. I am not sure it can even increment the program counter without clicking.

Humming would be hitting a HALT and waiting for the operator to press a button.

jedberg2• 7 years ago

A friend of mine used to get paid a very senior engineer salary to maintain an old VAX system. The system ran a trading algorithm that made about $1M a day, so they figured it was worth keeping him around to do almost nothing at all, other than make sure that thing ran during trading hours.

cosmodisk6• 7 years ago

Would be interesting to hear more about this. Considering it was only an algorithm,was there no way to migrate it?

YeGoblynQueenne• 7 years ago

I bet the only complete specification of the algorithm was the program running on that one machina, and that it was written in some ancient VAX assembly.

Also, $1M is a lot of money to risk subtle changes to the logic of a 40-year old program. Main reason why big financial orgs are still running software from the 50's on mainframes, that.

rxhernandez2• 7 years ago

I have seen first hand that some algorithms can be quite sophisticated and even having the source code (without documentation) isn't nearly enough when the binaries that support the mathematics only run on an archaic piece of hardware.

ambicapter• 7 years ago

Fun implication being there exists a trading strategy that consistently make $1M a day for 40+ years (I guess what isn't mentioned is how much capital was backing up that strategy)?

matthewwiese• 7 years ago

On a VAX no less! Can't imagine there's an HFT arbitrage opportunity for such "slow" tech.

treespace8• 7 years ago

It could be commissioned based. X cents per share processed. Lots of custom algos that are trusted by traders.

jedberg2• 7 years ago

I don’t remember numbers but it wasn’t a crazy high return. Just a lot of capital being moved.

oldsklgdfth• 7 years ago

VAX systems are still around and openVMS is used to port old software and keep it running.

Can confirm, I had a job that was essentially get legacy code working on new systems. There were guys there that had been around since the inception of the thing and kept things running smoothly. The downside is they were always opposed to any sort of refactoring or rewrite, even if that made sense.

ggm2• 7 years ago

Vax emulation would probably get them out of the hole. Was it VMS or OpenVMS because I cannot conceive of a UNIX program which could not be ported out. If they wrote to the VMS structured FS semantics (its a typed-record index file model direct in the filesystem layer) then I could believe there were corner cases they did not want to explore.

sciurus• 7 years ago

Ticketmaster is a successful example of the emulation strategy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9808995

Animats2• 7 years ago

I wonder how much time the Living Computer Museum has left. That was a Paul Allen thing, keeping old computers alive. Unless they find a new sugar daddy, that will probably decline.

Museums that keep old machines working need a large operating budget. The Smithsonian used to keep all their clocks wound and running, their piece of the ENIAC was powered on and counted up, and the Atlas Missile Guidance Computer was run regularly. None of those run any more.

ilaksh2• 7 years ago

Maybe with good emulation and VR we can preserve them digitally.

noobermin3• 7 years ago

In some sense perhaps but part of it probably is the maintenance of the physical computers.

mygo• 7 years ago

emulation doesn't emulate the feeling you get when you're face to face with the real thing, but better than nothing at all I suppose.

Aloha• 7 years ago

I suspect they are fully funded.

elliotec• 7 years ago

I think they do pretty well, plus it's not like Paul Allen's wealth died with him. That is one of my favorite places ever though so I really hope it sticks around.

cosmodisk6• 7 years ago

A little bit off topic,but after reading this post,I texted my mum to check if they still have this: https://lady-eklipse.livejournal.com/4042.html It's photo no.6 in the article.The thing was made in 1979..Even when I was a kid (I'm 34), my friends were amazed that I had something like this. She said she'll check if it's still somewhere in the attic!:)

varjag• 7 years ago

It's super rare, hold onto it!

noobermin3• 7 years ago

That computer is older than him but he maintains it. I don't know, in a world where dev fads arise and die by years it's a little inspiration to see someone who maintains a multi-decade running system.

thunderrabbit• 7 years ago

Speaking of humming along, if you visit that site with https, they refresh to http!

https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ201907280007.html

quickthrower2• 7 years ago

Amazing. It looks like something from Dr. No.

Aardwolf2• 7 years ago

Relay based, more reliable and needing less replacement than vacuum tubes I assume, and nice clicking sound too :)

nwallin• 7 years ago

Relay based, more reliable and needing less replacement than vacuum tubes I assume,

Kinda sorta. Relays are mechanical devices that wear every time they're toggled. Every time you toggle a 1 to a 0 or vice versa, you risk destroying a relay.

Vacuum tubes don't have moving parts, so the wear is significantly reduced. However, when they're on, they're very hot, so their wear is related to power cycling. Every time you power the machine or power the machine off, you risk destroying a tube. Colossus was kept in a powered on state 24/7, even when not in use, despite using an ungodly amount of power. It was a measurable proportion of all of the electricity used on all of Britain during WWII.

So if you never run any programs on a relay computer and keep it in a low humidity basement, it will last indefinitely. But if you use it to do stuff, you'll be diagnosing and replacing failed relays routinely. If the computer has a clockrate of 10Hz and uses reed relays (the long life kind) with a lifetime of 10 million cycles, you can expect any individual relay to last 2,000,000 seconds of continuous use. Which is about 23 days. Multiply that by 1,000 relays and you've just figured out why it takes a full time employee just to keep the machine running. Imagine a RAID array using drives with a MTBF of 23 days. Eww.

Aardwolf2• 7 years ago

Ouch!

timonoko• 7 years ago

I seem to be the winner of the oldest-computer-still-in-everyday-use competition here. I have programmable TV-remote based on RCA COSMAC from 1976.

crabl• 7 years ago

If you ever find yourself in Mountain View on a Saturday around 11AM, I highly recommend taking in the IBM 1401 demo that happens at the Computer History Museum: singlehandedly one of the coolest things I’ve experienced. Having the opportunity to not only see the machines in action, but to speak with the engineers who originally used them in their work was such a treat.

rurounijones• 7 years ago

On a similar note for anyone who might find themselves in the UK the "National Museum of Computing" in the grounds of Bletchley Park is also a great visit https://www.tnmoc.org/ , with the guided tour especially.

sbuttgereit• 7 years ago

They also have the PDP-1 lab next door which they run on the first and third Saturdays of the month.

Last visit I was able to play the original "SpaceWar!" on it and the demo was run by Steve Russell and Peter Samson. Great to see pivotal computer history that directly impacted my life as described by people directly involved in making that history.

ezoe• 7 years ago

Recently, I used a working typewriter. It was a very refreshing experience. It has space, tab and backspace that physically move the paper back and forth. It has shift and caps lock which physically shift the head to use the upper part of the font.

The keystroke was too heavy and couldn't accept fact consecutive typing because of head jamming.

Now what is remaining for me is to use the working VT100 terminal and teletype.

noisy_boy• 7 years ago

I learned typing on a typewriter during my college summer holidays because the general advise was that if I end-up being a total academic failure, I would be able to earn my bread by typing legal documents at the city court. I thought it was a useless idea but learned it anyway (in two languages, no less).

As it happens, this came handy throughout my career (before and after I was a software developer). No matter what you do, you are much more productive on a computer, if you can type without looking at the keyboard at 70-80 wpm (not bragging because in the world of good touch typists, that is a poor score).

userbinator• 7 years ago

It's a relay-based computer. Basically as long as relays continue to be made (which is probably close to forever), it can still be serviced. Somewhat newer but still old computers using custom ICs that stopped being made long ago would not have as good a chance of survival, and vacuum tubes are also relatively rare. But relays are still being made, and people still build relay computers for fun, as a quick search of the Internet will show; this is one of the more memorable ones: http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/

There's a similar analogy to this in the automotive world, where early cars were simple and one could easily service and maintain them, even fabricating new parts as necessary; at the same time, they're nowhere near as efficient as modern equivalents.

Animats2• 7 years ago

It's a relay-based computer. Basically as long as relays continue to be made (which is probably close to forever), it can still be serviced.

Yes. And even then, the relays can be repaired. The NYC subway system has a shop that refurbishes the relays of their signaling system.

I restore old Teletype machines. The ones from the 1920s and 1930s are the easiest to restore. They're mostly all steel and cast iron. Once you clean, oil, and adjust them, they usually work, unless the machine was seriously damaged. I have five running Teletype machines.

The post-WWII machines are harder, but still repairable. The ones from the 1960s and 1970s are really hard, and some of the plastic parts have to be fabricated. The last Teletype, the Teletype Model 40 (1979-1984) appears to be hopeless. The print chain deteriorates over time, and making a new print chain, with all the little character slugs, would be a huge job.

Restoring current electronics, with SOIC chips, will be hopeless after the ICs wear out.

asteli• 7 years ago

I helped a friend-of-a-friend debug some control circuits on an ancient drill press. I wondered "why not throw a microcontroller and some SSRs in here instead of dealing with all this goofy relay logic?" Then I realized that I was servicing a 50 year old piece of equipment, which would continue to be serviceable long after Microchip stops making ATMega328s.

sword_smith• 7 years ago

For my masters project in applied nuclear physics in 2013-2014, I was running the Finnish software Sampo 91 (from 1991) for analyzing gamma spectroscopy lines produced in our Germanium detector. I could get it to work on Windows 3.1 with some backwards compatibility features. It didn't run on a VM but on a physical Intel 486 machine the hospital where I was working had laying kept in store. It was a pretty nostalgic experience to set it up since the 486 was my family's first computer. I learned two things then: a lot of the basic features that we expect from an operating system already existed back then, and using old software is a lot less stressful than modern since computer's only did one thing at a time back then.

doctorstupid• 7 years ago

In operation it sounds a bit like a pachinko parlor. Imagine if pachinko machines performed a useful computation, allowing the parlors to be server farms powered by gamblers.

jackdh• 7 years ago

Is there any translation for the video available?

Aromasin• 7 years ago

We've got a computer in the lab from the 70's that we use to upload firmware for some legacy chips still in service on aircraft (a cabin lighting system, not anything vital to the aircraft staying in the air!). I dread the day that it breaks because it's all bespoke software and hardware. We tried to back it up to another device but it's simply not compatible with anything except that computer.

When it finally gives up the ghost it's likely going to cost thousands to design a new system with modern hardware, which doesn't even include the cost of writing up all the new safety documentation and grounding the aircraft for a refit! To add to the headache, it's all written in BASIC so the only ones who knew how to do anything with it have long retired or passed away. I don't look forward to the day I have to reverse engineer that bad boy.

Technician keeps computer made in 1959 still humming along

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