Thou shalt follow these vintage computing commandments | Hacker News Reader

Thou shalt follow these vintage computing commandments

oldvcr.blogspot.com

71 pointszdw30 comments

> 6. Thou shalt keep the box and paperwork if thou can, so that future generations may appreciate the context.

I do that millenial thing of keeping all the boxes of my expensive products.

I recently broke the habit and threw nearly everything away. I would regret it based on this but hardware/software packaging isnt what it once was. Even the apple stuff which is somewhat legendary for packaging has lacklustre documentation and diminishing space for cables/essential accessories; especially when compared to vintage computers

The general situation is this: If you throw away the box and paperwork you will almost certainly want it back later; If you keep it, you will never need it again. Same as carrying an umbrella and a rain coat will almost certainly cause it not to rain (and the contrapositive statement).

I used to have a bag full of chargers and cables for devices long departed. I kept them on the off chance that I would need one or the other. A few weeks ago, I realized that I had never once needed any of them over the decades. Feeling slightly ashamed of my tech hoarder tendencies, I threw them all in the recycling. Of course, no sooner had the recycling truck pulled away than one of my friends asked if anyone had a charger for an early 2000s model digital camera that I had. Apparently, these "vintage" cameras are all the rage now and her kid was looking to resurrect hers. It never fails!

There's a reciprocal relationship on the duration you've kept the original packaging and how quickly you will want it back after throwing it away.

I also used to do this and also recently stopped. I'm glad! Not keeping old boxes is liberating. The boxes never made me happy. Nor did they seem to increase resale value in the rare cases I sold anything. Good riddance.

I have an old MSX including its box. The box is of course dirty/moldy, and I derive zero value from it. I think most retro nerds wouldn't derive any value from it. Am I wrong? I mean, if I wanted to (I don't) I could take a picture/scan of each side and make a better-than-current-state replica of the box. I've had it for over a year. What to do? :/

It's good for resale, it's good for inventory management of bundled accessories/hardware (e.g., that bracket you didn't need originally, you now need to still own and be able to find), and sometimes it's good for protecting the product while moving apartment/house.

vintage documentation was either the absolute best or worst, depending on vendor.

Re: Point 9, I am reminded the following of the following scoring legend from a psychological inventory:

  0 .. I never exhibit this behaviour
  1 .. I exhibit this behaviour at times, for reasons other people find just
  2 .. I structure my life in order to accommodate this behaviour
  3 .. As above, but also my health (or financial health) suffers

See also the "commandment" about how many bicycles is the correct number, namely s-1, where s is the number wherein your partner leaves you.

s/bicycles/anyHobbyItem/

there's also a tangential rule if your partner purchases one more hobby related item, you are then required to purchase one for your hobby to keep the balance even

> Thou shalt remove batteries when placing items in storage, or thou will surely go to hell with them

As a kid of the '80s, I swear this was a solved problem with batteries from about 2000 to about 2015.

Suddenly all my batteries are leaking again if I leave them for more than a couple months just like they did in the '90s. It's remarkably frustrating. I just want to yell "why is this happening, we fixed this!?'

Personal experience -- Duracell sucks now (I heard the chemistry changed when they were bought out) and have ruined more than a dozen of my devices, well before the battery expiration date.

But so far I've found only 1 leaking Energizer in the past 10 yrs. Been swapping out for these, and Eneloops, depending on the use.

I even started a personal photo gallery of just leaking Duracells; maybe I'll finally start that Instagram account...

Today when shopping for AAAa I found non-duracells for 7.something, and another brand for 5 Euros for 4 batteries.

I picked up the duracell (it's a good brand, right?) to see that it's alkaline. Iirc Duracells "didn't leak" and lasted longer because they weren't alkaline. It's possible they offer better batteries elsewhere, but I bought the cheaper ones.

I really wish i could find the article i got it from, if i recall the gist was that they've always been alkaline, but the company removed an additive that reduced or delayed the leaking in an effort to save money.

A bunch of OEM companies got upset that their products were being destroyed, and thus two tiers of battery were created, one for OEM devices, and one for off-the-shelf

Feels familiar. At some point in the past few years I had one battery leak after the other. Never saw that happen for a long time before that.

Only using NiMH rechargeables now anymore where possible, they simply don't leak.

All batteries will leak eventually; it's simply fundamental to the chemistry of batteries. Some do leak much faster than others, though.

> I've mourned otherwise pristine machines with ugly gouges in their cases that neatly fit where the power cord had been. This is due to the plasticizers in the cord which will also plasticize the hard plastic shell of the computer itself — and you don't want that plasticized.

Whoa, I never knew this was a thing. I always unplug connectors when storing things because you never know if they're going to get banged around and weaken the connection, but for non-removable cords I would usually wrap them up since there's normally a strain reliever on there.

New Testament:

Verily, I say unto you, whosoever scraps or mods a rare vintage keyboard for "mechanical keyboards" fandom purposes, or advertises a rare vintage keyboard on eBay with keywords like "Cherry switches", shall be punished as if a camel being shoved through the eye of a needle.

Sorry, can't hear you over the clack of my custom TKL with Alps SKCM salmons and keycaps harvested from a NOS Apple Extended Keyboard.

> 8. Thou shalt figure out what thou willst do with thine collection upon thy passing, or all thy hard work will be lost in an estate sale or something.

Or better yet: Decide what should happen to your junk and specify that in your will, so your grieving kin don't have to figure out how to sell a house full of it. Unless they are also fans of your hobby, your hobby is just going to be another pain in the butt to take care of while they are already dealing with your loss.

This pained me to see recently at my grandparents house. After my grandpa died my grandma moved into a nursing home and her house had to be sold.

Around 5 auctioneers came to the property and took around and 4 of them basically said "whelp, you would be paying me to take all this to the junk yard". One auctioneer agreed to take it and eventually most things sold for very low prices of like $1-$10 when they were worth much more.

Over 60 years of various collections had accumulated. A lifetime of them collecting and meticulously holding onto them, gone in a flash. The family didn't have the throughput to go through each item, one by one to figure out what everything was worth. It was an emotional tax on the family just to box it all up to get it out of the house.

So much wasted. So now the most important thing I tell people over 65 that they can do in the next 10 years is figure out what they want to do with all their belongings, *BEFORE* their family has to decide what to do with it. Its an emotional and physical burden to your family if you don't figure out what to do with your belongings and I think a little bit selfish. You know whats coming but if you don't plan for it, you are just pushing the work on to the next generation.

"Döstädning" in Sweden. There were a flurry of English-language articles about it circa 2017.

Especially when they don't know what's valuable and what's not. If you're leaving valuable stuff, indicate that somewhere.

Source: the MASSIVELY expensive machinists tools I bought for nothing from an estate sale.

It also happens the family mostly cares about their loved ones things going to someone who actually cares more than they could. Source: mee too.

Better still, start "disposing" of it before you die (so called Swedish Death Cleaning).

It is missing commandment 0 - Check the RIFA caps, because they make big stink..

Although arguably commandment 2 is the most important.

The author is *completely wrong* about recapping.

You can either proactively replace electrolytic capacitors that will leak sooner or later, or you can replace them after they leak and also have to repair traces, replace components, and so on.

That “Usagi Electric” clown on YouTube says “I prefer to diagnose rather than shotgun-recap!” and, well, he’s going to be learning how to repair traces as a result of his misguided pretension.

Same. Recap if you can, it doesn't cost much, and they'll eventually have to be replaced anyway. If you don't have a lot of experience, then recap a system that's easy to replace like a Sega Genesis or something. You'll gain a lot of experience and probably grow your toolset.

Also I'd add another commandment there, if you want to make your equipment last the longest, store them in a constant temperature without moisture.

> 1. Thou shalt check voltage and polarity on new-to-thee power supplies, or thy machines shall be smote and release smoke.

Yeah, so... we were going from the US to England for a business trip. Someone on the team bought some inexpensive voltage converters on Amazon. When we got there and set up, we failed to follow this "commandment", and blew three fuses in the first ten minutes.

Turns out the "inexpensive" voltage converters were simply a resistor. That's it. So the voltage conversion was a function of current. At "normal" current, it converted approximately correctly. But at less than expected current (idle, say), the conversion was wildly out of spec.

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