The can of worms we opened when we learned of the server switched off after eighteen years and ten months' service is still wriggling, as a reader has contacted us to tell of nearly 30-year-old laptops still in service.
Reader "Holrum" says he has "a couple dozen Toshiba T1000 laptops from the mid [1980s] still fully functional (including floppy drives)".
The T1000 was introduced in 1987. [...] The machine was one of the very first computers to use a clamshell form factor. [...] It also offered a rather archaic LCD display, as illustrated.
[...]The machine ran MS-DOS 2.11 on a ROM [and] came with a colossal 512kB of RAM [...] and a single 3.5-inch floppy drive.
Holrum says the T1000s are taken offline every few years for just the few minutes required to replace the NiCad batteries and give them a clean before they are returned to duty as process monitoring terminals.
Previous: Beat This: Server Retired After 18 Years and 10 Months
Related Stories
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) board has agreed to spend $212 million to get its Muni Metro light rail off floppy disks.
The Muni Metro's Automatic Train Control System (ATCS) has required 5¼-inch floppy disks since 1998, when it was installed at San Francisco's Market Street subway station. The system uses three floppy disks for loading DOS software that controls the system's central servers.
[...]
After starting initial planning in 2018, the SFMTA originally expected to move to a floppy-disk-free train control system by 2028. But with COVID-19 preventing work for 18 months, the estimated completion date was delayed.On October 15, the SFMTA moved closer to ditching floppies when its board approved a contract with Hitachi Rail for implementing a new train control system that doesn't use floppy disks, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
[...]
Further illustrating the light rail's dated tech, the current ATCS was designed to last 20 to 25 years, meaning its expected expiration date was in 2023. The system still works fine, but the risk of floppy disk data degradation and challenges in maintaining expertise in 1990s programming languages have further encouraged the SFMTA to seek upgrades.
[...]
The SFMTA plans to spend $700 million (including the $212 million Hitachi contract) to overhaul the light rail's control system. This includes replacing the loop cable system for sending data across the servers and trains. The cables are said to be a more pressing concern than the use of floppy disks. The aging cables are fragile, with "less bandwidth than an old AOL dial-up modem," Roccaforte previously told Ars.
[...]
The SFMTA's website says that the current estimated completion date for the complete overhaul is "2033/2034."
[...]
Various other organizations have also been slow to ditch the dated storage format, including Japan, which only stopped using floppy disks in governmental systems in June, and the German navy, which is still trying to figure out a replacement for 8-inch floppies.
El Reg reports
A chap named Ross, says he "Just switched off our longest running server".
Ross says the box was "Built and brought into service in early 1997" and has "been running 24/7 for 18 years and 10 months".
"In its day, it was a reasonable machine: 200MHz Pentium, 32MB RAM, 4GB SCSI-2 drive", Ross writes. "And up until recently, it was doing its job fine." Of late, however the "hard drive finally started throwing errors, it was time to retire it before it gave up the ghost!" The drive's a Seagate, for those of looking to avoid drives that can't deliver more than 19 years of error-free operations.
The FreeBSD 2.2.1 box "collected user session (connection) data summaries, held copies of invoices, generated warning messages about data and call usage (rates and actual data against limits), let them do real-time account [inquiries] etc".
[...] All the original code was so tightly bound to the operating system itself, that later versions of the OS would have (and ultimately, did) require substantial rework.
[...] Ross reckons the server lived so long due to "a combination of good quality hardware to start with, conservatively used (not flogging itself to death), a nice environment (temperature around 18C and very stable), nicely conditioned power, no vibration, hardly ever had anyone in the server room".
A fan dedicated to keeping the disk drive cool helped things along, as did regular checks of its filters.
[...] Who made the server? [...] The box was a custom job.
[...] Has one of your servers beaten Ross' long-lived machine?
I'm reminded of the the Novell server that worked flawlessly despite being sealed behind drywall for 4 years.
(Score: 2) by SrLnclt on Monday February 15 2016, @04:59PM
512 kB of RAM? They should have held out for 640kB. What couldn't a person do if they had 640kB?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:26PM
I think the impressive number in the article is the 2.9 kgs. Lighter than the laptop I'm currently writing this on!
(Certainly this box is a bit more capable but it's also 20 years newer.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:03PM
For the love of god man, you can replace all those dinosaurs with raspberry pi's and cut your power usage by a lot. Not to mention no more fans or spinning disks.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jimtheowl on Monday February 15 2016, @05:13PM
These machines have a track record for reliability. From experience, I would shop for something more than a pi to try to match that.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 15 2016, @05:39PM
The thing to google for is "PC/104" and you'll like the ruggedness and temp range and long product life, but not like the price very much.
PC/104 just won't die. I remember when it only had ISA. That was a long time ago.
I suspect the PC/104 standard will be around long after all of us.
The article also mentions the ole "plug the model M keyboard into a USB converter" trick I use as if its advanced necromancy to find an adapter to plug two things together, which I LOLed at.
I've been using the same model M since I got it in a surplus sale around '97. VERY nice feeling keyboard, I just can't find anything newer that's superior to it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @12:39AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:23PM
As someone who's just migrating a 15+-year old server to a RasPi, I sure ain't gonna actually decomission the old one and slot the new one in its place until its completely proved its stability. Almost no Pi has been seen to be able to sustain five-nines availability and year-long uptimes, which is what I'll be demanding of it. No Pi has been shown to demonstrate 20+-year longevity. The tech in those 20+-year old machines is actually *simpler* than what you're proposing as a replacement. All of these things imply there's a positive risk to the change. I just hope my 15+-year old server reaches its 16th birthday until the Pi has done the equivalent job on a test network for at least 6 months. And that's why my servers, year after year, achieve five nines, and only once in the last decade has the failure to achieve that been anything which could be considered my fault given that I can't simply increase my budget by a factor of ten to get better protection from the faults of others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:52PM
If possible I'd try to use a VM or dosbox to avoid rewriting logic- the issue would be the hardware interfaces, there might be timing errors/differences with the replacements.
(Score: 2) by dmbasso on Tuesday February 16 2016, @05:10AM
Linux raspi 3.18.5+ #744 PREEMPT Fri Jan 30 18:19:07 GMT 2015 armv6l
Last login: Sat Feb 13 06:48:59 2016 from xxxxxx
dmbasso@raspi ~ $ uptime
05:08:36 up 370 days, 5:56, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.05
Used as secondary DNS server and MX.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday February 15 2016, @06:27PM
As they say "If it ain't broke don't fix it."
While I totally agree with you about the energy savings that could be achieved by replacing the Toshibas with something modern with lower power requirements you also have to consider various things that might make replacing them more trouble than it would be worth.
They probably have some kind of custom application code that would have to be ported and there might also be an Interface to external hardware that is not be supported anymore, or have been custom designed in the first place, which would need to be updated. Possibly they would need to reverse engineer everything because no one has the original source code or schematics anymore. And when you consider the cost of doing all that keeping the little power hungry dinosaurs on line might be way cheaper.
Unless of course your volunteering to do the upgrade for free. :)
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Monday February 15 2016, @07:22PM
At some point the machine will die you're probably already way out on the long tail as it is and if something breaks, it's going offline and you might not be able to get a replacement part. Assuming that the part that goes out doesn't destroy the rest of the machine when it goes.
When I hear somebody bragging about their server being in use for decades, I wonder about how short sighted that is because you're going to be migrating at some point and luck is not a strategy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday February 15 2016, @08:30PM
your totally right, they are going to fail someday. And the cost of replacing the laptops, and possibly everything connected to them since it probably won't work with modern hardware or MCUs, is going to be very steep. While I would hope that management has some kind of replacement plan in place I doubt it. Don't forget that management tends to put off any upgrade or repair that isn't critical to their email working till next year, and then they put it off again, and repeat until they have to do something.
These laptops are not being used as servers, sounds more like they are some kind of control/monitoring system that is not very hardware intensive and may not even be mission critical. The case might not be "we don't want to spend money upgrading" but more a "we don't want to spend the money to rip the redundant and obsolete stuff out". If the environment they are in has allowed them to work this long it might allow them to work another 30. Hells, I've seen control systems from the 1960s using the original relays that are still running,
When someone talks about their servers I tend to agree with you, but its hard to know what this scenario is without more info.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday February 15 2016, @09:58PM
There is always a risk, even with something completely new. How do you know the manufacturer of your brand new shiny won't run themselves in to the ground tomorrow, rendering it more or less a useless brick? It happens.
If they have kept an unsupported (not necessarily even old) piece of equipment running with no spares parts, no failover, no one knowledgeable in the system, no emergency migration plan, or no one else to call, then they are asking for big trouble.
On the other hand if they take the responsibility themselves to do all of that and periodically re-evaluate the cost vs benefit of moving to something completely different, then such risks can easily be minimized.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday February 15 2016, @10:27PM
That's why you do burn in tests on them and avoid buying proprietary crap when you can avoid doing so.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:07AM
Judging by the failure rate of the machines I have been supporting, I have more than ample spare parts to fix whatever broke, and I know where to get more.
The rate of failures I am seeing leads me to believe the machines will be running far longer than I will be running, providing someone doesn't like the way they look and trash 'em.
It does not require a super computer to drill a hole in a piece of metal at a certain place one after another 24 hours a day. Having access to a skilled machinist to make spare parts for the robot is a lot more critical. I could probably get anything I need right out of damn near any electronic scrap pile.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday February 15 2016, @11:02PM
Could be low power usage is one reason why those old laptops are still in use. Small footprint may be another reason. They can't match a Pi, but they're a whole lot better than an 80's era 80386 desktop PC. Heck, they're probably better on those points than the average desktop PC of circa 2005. The typical ATX case with several cubic parsecs of empty space inside should have been retired 15 years ago. Same with the 3 in 1 +12V/+5V/-5V gigantic desktop power supply and those 4 pin Molex connectors. Terribly wasteful of power and space.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday February 15 2016, @05:11PM
Why can't you just get a normal user account, OriginalOwner? All this business with being a "signed AC" where your signature links to a post that has a 50:50 chance of being sarcasm is just trollish.
Presumably because if you did that, people could mod you down.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:18PM
I don't register because I believe the people should own the memes of production.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by turgid on Monday February 15 2016, @06:03PM
It's all part of the charm of the place.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @06:39PM
Yeah, that charm wore off long before the "original owner" wore out his welcome posting as gewg_.
The other site is 80% ACs these days, and utterrly worthless.
Even here on SN, carrying on a discussion with 20 ACs all posting on the same story, each claiming to be the "same ac" becomes utterly pointless, and the propensity for hate spewing flamebait seems concentrated in the AC posts.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday February 15 2016, @06:43PM
I used to like gewg__'s comments. Perhaps the world is becoming so polarised that it will be impossible to communicate without continuous offensiveness? Everyone seems to offend someone somewhere, and last year angry won the Internet.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @07:43PM
Emphasis on one.
The appended nym notion worked for nearly 2 years before one individual with the maturity of a 14 year old and a correlating amount of time on his hands decided to repeatedly demonstrate what an asshole he could be.
...and most Soylentils are too timid to mark his comments SPAM.
Additionally, I have explained my philosophy on signups multiple times.
Surely tangomargarine has seen at least 1 of those.
Maybe he was just in the Slow Class in school.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by turgid on Monday February 15 2016, @08:19PM
I liked to think I could tell the difference between the real and fake posts quite easily. Maybe I was over confident? The troll ones always looked conspicuously immature.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:38PM
Yeah, usually the troll posts amount to nothing more than 'cocks' (which is apparently a reference to this irc post? [bash.org]) and for a while it was just random words.
--OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Monday February 15 2016, @08:56PM
Cool story gewg_. That's not how the Spam moderation works.
Your problems could be easily solved with a user account, and one has been reserved for you. Nothing about your approach or outrage makes sense, don't kid yourself otherwise.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:22PM
not how the Spam moderation works
Repeated abuse, repeatedly marked as abuse, gets that IP address blocked. Right?
If this is not correct, you could explain what you believe the misunderstanding to be.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 15 2016, @11:00PM
The spam moderation, at most, can cut down on the number of times someone can post per day. Sufficiently negative karma can get you limited to N posts per day (or possibly rolling 24h period). At least I think it still works that way on the production servers. We may have disabled that functionality or tweaked it into non-functionality for TOR users since their address pool is exceedingly small. For honest to flying spaghetti monster spammers we just manually and permanently block the address and/or subnet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:24PM
For honest-to-flying-spaghetti-monster spammers we just manually and permanently block the address and/or subnet
Are Spam-mod'd posts automatically logged centrally?
...or does one of the staff have to encounter that during his own reading of threads?
SPAMmy (below) linked back to 1 of his word-salad posts.
That linked post is still marked Spam but hasn't been deleted.
There have been a bunch of such posts by that individual (whose intention is to inject noise into threads), with those posts mod'd similarly.
There are also a bunch that use a particularly distinctive 2-word phrase, also mod'd as Spam.
If the Spam mod was meant to limit abuse, it doesn't seem to be especially effective in the case of this serial abuser.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 15 2016, @11:38PM
We have an admin page that logs all spam mods so we can double check them for abuse. When a bunch show up, it's a clue something's going on.
Dude, we don't delete posts. Not even spam posts. The only thing we'd ever delete is something that unquestionably either breaks or causes us to break the law.
It's doing what it was meant to. Giving you lot a tool to mod it down without using another mod incorrectly and giving us a central place to watch for it so we can wield the ole IP block hammer if we decide it's warranted. One, two, or even dozens of useless posts spread out over time aren't going to get you IP blocked though. That takes either proper commercial spam or large amounts of useless posts over a short period of time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:56PM
Yes. My error.
According to what I understand, intentionally-injected noise which is marked as abuse should be getting mod'd to -10.
...and, again, a serial abuser should have been banned.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 16 2016, @01:39AM
Ahh, there's a misunderstanding there. The -10 is to the person getting modded's karma. In this case that ipid. The score to the comment is still a -1 so that multiple instances can be stacked on for additional karma hits.
Yeah, already laid out the instances where we'd ip/subnet ban someone and this guy don't fit. Hell, you've gotten more spam hits than anyone of late. Or at least someone signing your name has. There haven't been enough of them to bother even looking at the ipid though, so I haven't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @06:40AM
you've gotten more spam hits than anyone
Not I. I don't recall ever getting one.
Or at least someone signing your name has
Bingo!
haven't been enough of them to bother
Hmmm. I've seen a bunch.
There have been a lot of -1 mods for SPAMmy as well--but using other descriptors.
Like I said, some folks are timid about using the Spam mod even when it clearly applies.
Ah, well.
Thanks for splainin'.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday February 15 2016, @09:42PM
I probably keep forgetting it because it's such a dumb reason it immediately escapes my memory after I read it.
So you're one AC signing your posts claiming to be another AC. There's just too many layers of indirection for me to put any faith whatsoever that you're the same person. Sounds like this one "asshole" was just demonstrating the weakness of your posting system. But no, he's the asshole; we shouldn't reconsider. And I'm the asshole now for bringing it up again.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:46PM
You really think a person leaving comments like this [soylentnews.org] (under my nym, I might add) isn't an asshole?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @12:42AM
There can be more than one asshole.
-- SomeAsshole_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @12:44AM
Uh, you don't get to bring friends.
-- Willson_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:21AM
There can be more than one asshole.
-- SomeAsshole_
We are legion! We poop, and we don't forget. Expect us.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday February 15 2016, @07:18PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @08:26PM
I post from whichever keyboard I'm at, most of the time behind the same router, but some times on a cell phone, and sometimes while traveling, so the IP would change on rare occasion. But then I always log in.
Other than that, I agree, something like that for ACs would be great. I wouldn't even bother to hash it. Just append the IP in cleartext behind the name.
The excuse they use is that they are too lazy to log in, yet with every browser remembering passwords and logins for you, we know that is nonsense. Its simply that they want to engage in drive-by-posting of flamebait and insults.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @09:43PM
Or perhaps they believe that the content of the post is more important than the name attached to it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Monday February 15 2016, @11:42PM
Or perhaps they believe that the content of the post is more important than the name attached to it.
Funny how that content tends to be insults and trolls most of the time, and also its equal parts funny and sad how they seem to think those insults and trolls are "important".
Lets face it: That dog won't hunt. If you have something important to say, you don't write it on a paper towel drenched in piss that you throw at some passer-by.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:48PM
Does the minority define the whole?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:44PM
'Fess up, dude: You had a 900 number some years back and called yourself Miss Cleo. [wikipedia.org]
Clearly, Soylentils don't need to respond to your posts--you already know what they're thinking.
You're obviously psychotic^W psychic.
...and, clearly, everyone's motivations are all the same.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday February 16 2016, @04:27AM
Appended IP address is not a good idea if they need to remain anonymous and are on a fixed IP address. Some would be very easy to ID. Also kind of a mess for readers (did I reply to AC 106.223.01.01 or AC 106.202.01.01 ??)
But how about... number each AC sequentially for a given story, and keep track as needed behind the scenes. So what we'd see out here in userland would be posts by "Anonymous Coward 0001" etc. where the number is good ONLY for that story.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:20AM
I don't think "need to remain anonymous" enters into the discussion.
They can create a persona used for nothing but SN if they want.
The idea isn't to dox them, its to make them wear the feces they throw as they drive past.
At least gewg_ and OriginalOwner sign their posts, but that only solves a portion of the reputation management issue.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DNied on Tuesday February 16 2016, @11:06AM
The "anonymous modifier" takes care of that: set it to -6, read at threshold 0 and you'll never see ACs. Set it to a less extreme negative value and you'll only see ACs that get modded up.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday February 16 2016, @05:56AM
I've been tempted to implement a tripcode-like feature (i.e. 4chan) to give ACs a middle ground. Never got around to it, and I haven't had much inclination to hack on rehash to actually do it :(.
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sudo rm -rf on Tuesday February 16 2016, @01:19PM
I never heard of tripcode before, interesting concept. It means that ACs have to enter a code with each submit and a computed hash from that code will be appended. Impersonating would require one to know the originally entered code (that itself would not be stored anywhere)
It wouldn't solve the problem with the critias syndrome (one person speaking in dialogues), but I think it would be a nice improvement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @06:03PM
There is quality laptop keyboard with full-length travel keys.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Monday February 15 2016, @06:15PM
these machines are a HUGE waste of electricity. if they were rebuilt using modern technology, they could run on just the energy captured from the room lights with a tiny solar panel.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shortscreen on Monday February 15 2016, @06:50PM
I bet that all of those laptops put together use less electricity than one modern 'gaming' PC.
You probably can't even buy a laptop now with power requirements as low as one of these.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday February 15 2016, @08:05PM
I think you'd be surprised. Per the first reference I found, the Toshibas have 60 watt power adapters. Assuming 24 of these, minimum, that's 1440 watts. A good deal more than the gaming PC I'm typing this from now. I mean, could you build a gaming PC that uses more than this? Sure, if you are a PC ricer. I haven't seen anything I can't run at 50 FPS though with my single video card and a ~500W power supply.
Comparing these to modern laptops is tricky, because generally they're not expected to be plugged in 24/7. The MBP I have charges the battery in about an hour of being plugged in, and then it lasts for hours under heavy load. It has a 75 watt power adapter, sure (which is obviously far more than it needs, given how fast the battery charges) but it's only being used maybe 10% of the time.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Informative) by fnj on Monday February 15 2016, @09:10PM
All the laptops I've owned and most I've seen, have AC adapters rated at about 65 watts. And their average power consumption is generally about 10-20 watts. So your estimate of total average power consumption is probably at least three times what it should be, and maybe six times. So it isn't 1440 watts; it's closer to 360 watts.
A lot of gaming PCs have 1000 watt supplies or even 1500 watts. Of course they aren't averaging 100% power, either, but at worst the 24 Toshibas are not using substantially more power than a gaming PC.
Of course 24 Beaglebones (Raspberry Pi's as a poor substitute if you MUST) only use an average of about 24 watts altogether. You could run over 300 of them for the power you suck down with either the array of Toshibas, or a gaming PC.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @04:00AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_T1000 [wikipedia.org] --> power supply 9 VDC, 1.1A, or ~10Watts...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:10PM
That's a lot less than I would have thought. One could compare it to a raspberry pi, but you'd also have to consider power for a screen as well. Raspberry Pi Power Usage: "400% CPU load, 1x USB 64GB SSD, 1250 mA (~6.25W)." http://www.pidramble.com/wiki/benchmarks/power-consumption [pidramble.com] Raspberry Pi Display (7"): "The display used 2.23 Watts. (0.43 A at 5.19 V)." That would make a total of ~8.48Watts. The real difference is that the raspberry pi has vastly superior processing power. Sure, it may not have the track record of the Toshibas, but those Toshibas won't last forever. Assuming the Pi Zero ever becomes available for purchase at a reasonable quantity for the original price, that might even do the trick. Assuming you could run them headless, the Raspberry Pi would make even more sense. Though, if not the Raspberry Pi, something else could do the trick. How about PocketChip http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip [getchip.com] or an Orange Pi http://www.orangepi.org/index.html [orangepi.org] or something totally different? It is negligent to use such old hardware for systems that you rely on. Assuming their loss would be of little consequence, then perhaps it's time to remove them from service. Otherwise, preventive maintenance is a thing.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:12PM
Bah, I forgot to include the source for the comment "The display used 2.23 Watts. (0.43 A at 5.19 V)."http://hdmipi.com/ [hdmipi.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday February 16 2016, @05:19AM
according to this, it is 10W
http://freegeekvancouver.blogspot.com/2010/12/toshiba-t1000-teardown.html [blogspot.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:15PM
Please contact them with your idea, and put your good ideas to use by helping them achieve what you know to be possible. Unless you are just complaining about what people post again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:47PM
And the cost of doing the conversion would pay for years' worth of electricity. While less wasteful, it would not be cheaper. This sad fact faces many companies with old equipment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:14PM
They have a port for an external monitor. I wonder whether power could be saved by hooking up an LED-backlit display. Presumably the backlights on these are fluorescent, and the built-in display is rather small. What's more, it's monochrome, which achieves the same brightness with less intense backlighting, in comparison to a colour LCD (wasting half of the light, rather than five-sixths).
The processor in these is an 80C88, the CMOS version of the 8088. Intersil's version [intersil.com] uses a maximum 10mA/MHz and these run at 4.77 MHz. With a 5 V supply, that comes to less than a quarter of a watt.
These have no hard drive; instead they have MS-DOS in a ROM. Sounds pretty energy-efficient to me.
These are laptop computers, intended to run off the built-in Ni-Cd battery. Those batteries have a lower energy density and specific energy (energy per unit mass) than lithium-ion. I'm sure that energy consumption was given careful thought in their design.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday February 16 2016, @03:11PM
Okay then champ. Go over there with a hand full of arduinos and raspberry pi's and explain how you're are going to solve their energy crisis with 3d printing. Replacing a still working computer with one that does one task very well is not as easy as you might think. If it ain't broke, don't fix it or attempt to fix it unless you absolutely have to.
Your first hurdle is management and goes something like this:
Anecdotal story that fits with today's theme:
Here at work we have a glove box running DOS, specifically Windows 98 that boots strait to DOS. It's running on a P3 600 with 64MB RAM on an ASUS CUBX-E socket 370 board running the 440BX chipset which is the last Intel chip set to fully support the ISA bus. Inside are two ISA boards with the venerable 82C55 PPI or Programmable Peripheral Interface chips. One board also has a 8254 PIT or Programmable Interval Timer and a 12 bit ADC in addition to the 82C55. Both boards are made by "computer boards" now known as Measurement Computing who still sells those boards. The control logic is pretty simple and the software was written in QBasic. It's actually very easy to use too. I have plenty of trouble with that box. The original designers cut a lot of corners and left you with a big steaming pile (I can write a tome of complaints on this shit show). Perfect upgrade candidate right?
I have asked the vendor several times for the code and his response is "I have it, but I prefer that I write you a whole new system using USB or PCI I/O cards. The cost would be at least $10,000. I have to be able to make some money" I laughed. No way am I investing in more proprietary PC control systems written by that clown. Me? I'd use a simple PLC and a SCADA setup to log the oven data to generate a printed log file that gets shipped with the parts to customers. Why a PLC? They last forever, don't need updates, don't phone home, don't have overly complex operating systems (some are just program monitors written in assembly or C), and have parts available for decades. No worrying about supporting some obsolete version of Windows that is boot locked to some bullshit EFI motherboard. Or if the code is available and able to be ported to a newer OS (Hello, VB 5/6 anyone?). How about if the I/O board maker is still around and has a stock of boards which if they do, most likely cost the same as the entire PLC setup. These days, the last thing anyone needs is Windows controlling anything. If it had to be a PC control system, I'd choose BSD or Linux and write the whole thing in C, Go, or Python and use Modbus TCP to industry standard I/O racks. Good ideas right?
But here is here is where all these grandiose plans fail: Management. Same story as above: You have backups of the software? YES. You have spare PC's, disks and I/O boards? YES. Can you still buy the I/O boards? YES. So you can still keep this system running? YES. Well then, why am I going to spend thousands on parts and labor for unneeded work? Crickets. Game over.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday February 16 2016, @05:06PM
Okay then champ. Go over there with a hand full of arduinos and raspberry pi's and explain how you're are going to solve their energy crisis with 3d printing.
there is no need for your incendiary commentary and condescending attitude. if you want to act like an asshole, that's fine, just don't do it here.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it or attempt to fix it unless you absolutely have to.
you seem to have a misconception about my objection. i don't object to them being old, i object to how much power they draw. if these had their own solar panels to generate power for them i would no objections at all. however, they draw plenty of electricity and electricity is currently generated by unclean means and therefore it's use should be reduced as much as possible. our civilization is very broken because it's destroying the only ecosystem we have.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday February 16 2016, @06:22PM
My initial comment was meant to be somewhat insulting but not to the extent you made it out to be. Relax, its the internet. Expect some butthurt every now and then. I actually keep it pretty clean until I see something completely unreasonable.
It's ridiculous to complain about the power usage of old equipment and its environmental impact when you obviously have no grasp of how critical some of these systems are. The amount of time, work, and money it takes to replace these kinds of systems can be staggering and financially dangerous.
Does that mean I don't care about the environment? Of course I care. I have taken steps to make things more energy efficient at both my home and at work. But you cant possibly expect a business to rip out control equipment that works to save a few kWh so you can feel all warm and fuzzy. It's beyond unreasonable, and to be frank, asinine to demand such a thing. Just be happy that the newer technology available is usually more efficient and go about your business.
As for solar offsetting: Many businesses, including the one I work for, have large solar installations to offset the cost of electricity. So our old Pentium 3 can be considered green as its load can be subtracted from the 100kW solar array on our roof. So yes, companies can be more green. Of course their motivation is based on the other kind of green. Either way, it works out.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:35PM
My initial comment was meant to be somewhat insulting but not to the extent you made it out to be. Relax, its the internet. Expect some butthurt every now and then. I actually keep it pretty clean until I see something completely unreasonable.
just because you normally act like more of an asshole, doesn't mean kinda acting like an asshole is par for course.
It's ridiculous to complain about the power usage of old equipment and its environmental impact when you obviously have no grasp of how critical some of these systems are. The amount of time, work, and money it takes to replace these kinds of systems can be staggering and financially dangerous.
of course, you are dead on. i'm the clueless one and you are the all-knowing god. that's not being condescending at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @12:51AM
Sounds good, but can you post pix?
(Score: 1) by Orion Blastar on Tuesday February 16 2016, @12:59AM
They have software written for 8086 PC chips and often buy them from eBay to use in their operations.
http://www.geek.com/chips/nasa-needs-8086-chips-549867/ [geek.com]
So they buy spare parts for the old chips to use on their custom equipment.
Intel no longer makes the 8086 CPU, and there is no other CPU that is socket compatible with it that is still made.
You'd think NASA can upgrade their technology to modern technology and use ARM chips or something that is more available in bulk, replace the 8 inch floppy drive with SDCards, use Raspberry PIs because of how cheap they are and can emulate DOS 8086 systems.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 16 2016, @06:14PM
Or they could just port the software to ARM. That's why you use open-source software (or, if you're some big entity like NASA, you require vendors to provide you the source code any time you buy custom software).