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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
(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.