Long-Term PC Preservation Project? 465
failcomm writes "I've been talking with my son's (middle-school) computer lab teacher about a 'time capsule' project. The school has a number of 'retirement age' PCs (5-6 years old — Dells, HPs, a couple of Compaqs), and we've been kicking around the idea of trying to preserve a working system and some media (CDs and/or DVDs), and locking them away to be preserved for some period of time (say 50 years); to be opened by students of the future. The goal would be to have instructions on how to unpack the system, plug it into the wall (we'll assume everyone is still using 110v US outlets), and get the system to boot. Also provide instructions on how to load the media and see it in action; whether it is photos or video or games or even student programs — whatever. So first, is this idea crazy? Second, how would we go about packing/preserving various components? Lastly, any suggestions on how to store it long term? (Remember, this is a school project, so we can't exactly just 'freeze it in carbonite'; practical advice would be appreciated.)"
I've thought about this (Score:2, Interesting)
The best bet would just be to include a laptop and a few solar chargers to power it. If the future world can't power a laptop with light for some reason... they don't deserve to look back into the past.
As for preservation (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure how practical it will be for when it's opened, but it'll suffice for keeping the sucker preserved.
Re:As for preservation (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps that mineral oil which is used to keep CRAYs cool might work? Maybe just get a barrel of that, drop all of the components in, and seal it up. I'm not sure how practical it will be for when it's opened, but it'll suffice for keeping the sucker preserved.
Mineral Oil works good for cooling, but it will eat through your components after a while, especially after 50 years. About the best thing you can do is seal it in the best vacuum possible. A lack of gas around the components does much better than forcing something in, be it air, liquid, etc.
preemptive correction just for the nerds (Score:3, Interesting)
No consumer electronics are designed to last 50 years. Unless you have been computing on a space probe, recycle the computers.
50 yrs is not that long (Score:5, Interesting)
In 50yrs I think you'd have more problem porting the video out than anything else. Remove the batteries too.
Why not store 3 complete systems in 3 entirely different ways. Hoping that one of them will survive intact. Or components from all three will have enough intact to make a complete system. Let's assume that whoever finds it, even in a century will be intelligent enough to turn it on. Unless this ends up being an Old Man in the Cave [imdb.com] sort of scenario. Then you've no hope anyway.
My uncle still fires up his Apple LISA every few months to do his accounting on it.
Re:Way too many unknowns (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if you went to the effort of saying "The two leads need to be supplied with a sine-wave alternating current peaking at 115 Volts" you have no way of knowing that in 50 years they'll be using Volts, AC, two leads, or know what a sine-wave is.
Um, we're talking 50 years from now...not 500. Many of students who created the time capsule could even be the ones digging it up. There will be plenty of people who understand its power requirements. There will be plenty of people who even know how to operated the thing with proficiency.
You need to be well-organised (Score:5, Interesting)
pack away some back up parts (Score:2, Interesting)
a few extra motherboards, most necessarily
it won't get you to 100 years, but assuming you pack away 4, and 2 die in the first 30 years, it will get you past 50 years at least
and, with hard work, and assuming nonoverlap in what part failed, you could cannibale parts to get at least one still working for a very long time
besides, even if they completely stop making capacitors, past 150 years, and all the caps fail, a capacitor isn't exactly a difficult component to troubleshoot, understand, or even make
at 150 years, there would be enough interest in building a new capacitor, and enough interest form antique historians to invest in the time to understand and trouble shoot the pc to keep the thing running
and at 200 years, it would probably even be worth a pretty penny
EEPROM is the clincher (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the EEPROMs used to store the BIOS code only have a rated data retention lifespan of 10 or 20 years. In 50 years, it would likely not even be able to boot.
But even should your EEPROM remain intact, the other problem is getting that hard drive spindle which has remained stationary for 50 years spinning again.
Re:The primary problem with your idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe they weren't designed to last that long, but they do, anyway. There are plenty of Apple IIs and TRS-80's out there, still running just fine. I have a 30+-year-old computer, myself, that still works. Granted, it's not 50 years, but it's getting pretty close.
Re:I've thought about this (Score:3, Interesting)
> You're assuming that in 50 years:
The capacitors have not dried out. Since they use a water based electrolyte, that could be the most critical point. Sometimes they dry out after just 2 years of normal use, due to the higher temperature during operation.
But the most important question would be: why? Do you really think that in 50 years anybody cares about a PC that was mediocre in the year 2000? Very few people get excited about punch cards, and that will be exactly how CDs will feel to someone used to wireless solid state data storage.
Re:As for preservation (Score:3, Interesting)
I've rented houses (that I moved out ASAP) that had the wiring from the 1890s/1900s still there, as well old fuse boxes (with those old twist fuses) that were hopelessly intertangled with new fuse boxes (for some reason they didn't rip everything out) and copper wiring intermeshed with aluminum wiring, and wires shielded with tar paper (falling apart). So I don't think you have to worry about moving from 110 anytime soon.
Notebooks and Desktops can run 110 or european 220 anyway. In some ways, it's a shame we didn't go the 220/240 route but such is the sticking power of standards such that they stick with us and in many cases bog us down for a long time.
slashdot suggestions (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Virtualization (Score:3, Interesting)
This is true. But, I would hope that unpacking an actual system that is authentic and plugging in the components would be quite an experience. But for all I know, 6-7th graders will be bored out of their skull. Invite their parents along to open it. I bet it'll be the big kids that really dig it.
I dunno. Would there be any point in a 2009 PC without a 2009 internet to use it with?
Re:Why? (Score:0, Interesting)
But for every one of you there are a thousand or more turdbrain like the parent poster who absolutely believe that they are living in the most amazing era ever, and that by the simple fact of being alive in it makes them better than their forerunners. They masturbate furiously in their own feces thinking nobody will ever best them, and nobody will ever get the stupid idea out of the fecal matter they have in their skulls.
I'm packing some of my own shit in a time capsule, so that it can be smeared on the future clueless kids.
Re:As for preservation (Score:3, Interesting)
It was Fluorinert [wikipedia.org], which is a fluorocarbon-based fluid - and about $200.00 a cup when I admin'd a Cray II back in 1988. Hardly "mineral oil" :-)
Go 50 years the other way (Score:5, Interesting)
So much of the experience of a current "computer" has nothing to do with the hardware, it's the content. So the virtualization ideas, etc have some merit.
50 years from now, how "cool" is old hardware going to be? Not very I expect. They will have better cheaper computers.
IMHO, you'd be better off including lots of pictures and printed material that will be usable, toss in some hw too, even if it won't work. In the end, I suspect an old yearbook will be more interesting than a computer.
Meh, that's just my 2 cents worth.
Battery life (Score:2, Interesting)
While some bios will boot (to default settings) without a bios battery installed most will simply fail post, hard.
Will a battery, even still in the original packaging, even hold a charge for 50 years? If you look back, battery technology has advanced quite a bit in the last 50 years and there is every indication that this will continue for the next 50 years so getting a hold of the exact battery (or even a similar one) that the bios needs may be impossible.
Re:As for preservation (Score:1, Interesting)
As for magnetic media "demagnetizing" over time: that's total bullshit. The problems are completely non-magnetic in nature. The drive heads loose alignment/oxidize in old drives. The binding of magnetic particles to the substrate goes bad over time. Etc. But the magnetic particles themselves don't give shit. If you don't expose them to temperatures over their Curie point, nor to coercion-level fields, they will last a few generations easy.
Distribute them as widely as possible. (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be better not to put them all in one place.
If you are going to get 200 CDs pressed, you'd do well to keep a few dozen of them in your capsule, and distribute the rest.
If it's a project at a school, insert a copy of the CD in the back of every copy of that year's yearbook. Make sure to send several copies of the yearbook with the CD insert to all the local libraries in the area. Chances are that will ensure that at least one of them will survive for 50 years. At least in my area, the libraries have yearbooks from all the local schools going back to the 40s, which I presume is when they started producing them. (They have class photos going back a lot further than that, too.)
In general, if you can make information interesting (or at least package it with something interesting), you can practically let other people do all the archival work for you.
Re:Capacitors are your enemy (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree about caps.
I once worked at a place that had dumb terminals that were going on five years old that were seriously flaky because of the capacitors. I managed to fix the situation by telling the users that when they turned off the terminal at the end of the day, they should set the entire thing upside down. The idea was to use gravity to redistribute enough of the electrolyte so that the dielectric performance was improved. It worked like a charm, although I got a unfortunate reputation for being something of a mad scientist. People who couldn't remember my name would refer to me as "that guy who had us turn our computers upside down because of those jelly-roll things."
So although it is a long shot, it might be worth storing the things upside down. In part this might counteract the migration of electrolyte that has occurred over the years, and when they unpack the thing and set it upright, it will counteract any migration of electrolyte that occurred during storage -- presuming any is left.
I wonder whether sealing the circuit boards in wax might help with the outgassing problem. There's an epoxy that is specifically designed for pouring over circuits, but wax could be undone after the capsule was opened -- although it would be messy.
In any case, the first step you should take is to restore the computers to as close to perfect working order as possible. You could desolder the capacitors and install brand new, high quality replacements. Also pay attention to connectors that need replacement. Then you should prepare the computers for storage. Speaking of connectors, it might be best to unplug as many connectors as possible, to prevent metal-to-metal reactions. Disassemble everything, leaving clear instructions about how to put them back together again.
The hard disks are bound to be a problem. Assuming the motherboard and power supply survive, I'd include a variety of media: CD-ROM, CF Card (yes, I know it's a long shot), maybe even 5" floppies with FreeDOS. Since you probably don't want to encourage kids to mess with VDTs, I'm not sure what you should do about preserving the CRTs. I'd consider an inexpensive LCD panel or maybe even one of those USB LED displays and set the computer up to display a welcome message if it boots up at all.
It occurs to me that it might be worth making the time capsule airtight, adding valves to it, then purging and pressurizing it (slightly) with a inert gas. Other than the shell, you could probably get most of what you need form a welding supply store. Purging the air of water, oxygen and miscellaneous pollutants would reduce the chemical degradation of the equipment. Pressurizing it might retard the outgassing problem for a few years. Although it is unlikely that the capsule would remain pressurized after decades, you'd have to put a warning on it if you don't want some future person to blow their head off. You probably should put a warning on the capsule anyway; I agree with the other poster who noted that after several decades, you could end up with a box of gaseous poisons, and I don't think people will become more careful about this sort of thing. They might be used to a world in which pollutants are more carefully regulated and recycled.
You could include a seal that the openers would break, with instructions to do outdoors and to give it a few hours for any contaminants to disperse.
Finally, there's a lot of educational value simply in researching the problem. Students should contact curators at museums which preserve and display antiquities, or which collect old technology.