Could we build a computer designed to last at least fifty years? (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Could we build a computer designed to last at least fifty years? (2021)

ploum.net

152 pointsandai126 comments

I find it odd the author spends lots of time talking about vintage typewriters but then fails to consider vintage computers which can give some real life examples of computers that are still usable almost 50 years on from their original release. E.g. the Commodore 64, lots of working examples still around and now 42 years since first release.

Certainly a C64 is highly restrictive compared to a modern machine and were one to specifically build a computer to last 50 years it's not where you'd start but surely a machine that has actually lasted almost 50 years and remains usable has things to teach you about long lasting computer design.

In particular interesting to see how open source fits in. The modern C64 ecosystem has plenty of tools and utilities that do use open source software and hardware (e.g. the Kung Fu Flash cartridge: https://github.com/KimJorgensen/KungFuFlash) but plenty of the core software, that actually runs on the machine, is proprietary software the source is long gone for. It's still around because of archivists and pirates and can continue to be used because the original copyright holders don't care to enforce their copyrights. So is open source actually a core item as the author asserts or just a nice to have? Having the software be archived and easily available later was the key. Along with simplicity, you just run the monolithic binary, there's no dependencies and the software is sufficiently simple that hacking around with the raw binary is perfectly feasible.

Thinking about it the Apple II is a better example here, for one thing it's yet older (47 years). However I don't personally posses one nor have I ever used one so I concentrated on the C64.

The author talks about doing timeless activities well. You can still word process, do spreadsheets and program on an Apple II. Probably meets the author's 'sturdy and resilient' requirements as well as being a 'heavier and well-designed object'.

The Tandy or trs80 line is even better. They were designed to be resilient and easy to repair and ample service documentation is available and sold to the consumer, meaning you can get repair docs even today in physical form if that floats your boat. Almost all the parts were off the shelf components.

> So is open source actually a core item as the author asserts or just a nice to have?

I think there's a difference in terms here. Having a computer that lasts for 50 years doesn't necessarily mean that you want a computer that is forever unchanging, frozen in amber. You should be able to upgrade a long-term computer, if you want to (including the software); the point is just that you don't have to upgrade.

For the "frozen in amber" use case, sure, you could just pirate the proprietary stuff and hope to fly under the radar. But for the living use case, you need open source, even if that's based on some decompiled proprietary code.

If you want a computing environment that lasts, open source _is_ a core item. Hardware isn't forever and at a certain point will have to change (even chips break/wear out, not to mention capacitors and other bits...)

If you can port your OS and your apps and have control over your data formats, you're in a position to adapt to change.

The C64 ROM source code hasn't been lost (it's here: https://github.com/mist64/cbmsrc) but I would count it as "source available" because it's not freely licensed (I believe Cloanto owns the copyright to it).

30 years running now, but probably would run another 20. Does this count?

C64 has a lot of failure prone parts. Much of that is due to the nature of NMOS construction. You'd want to target large feature size CMOS from the late 80s to early 90s to hit the sweet spot of semiconductor longevity.

Yeah, I dusted off the old Vic-20 to teach my kids to code, it’s over 40 years old now and all I needed to do was replace a fuse to get it running again (my recollection was it had been last used before a lightning strike, and we had gotten an 8088 by then so we never tried to repair it in the 80s) - it’s notable that the memory on the 8088 has since gone bad and it’s not usable anymore.

I have several computers that are 40 years old. I think the reason the old 80s microcomputers last so long is they don't have any moving parts like disk drives that go bad (I've had really bad success with the external disk drives I've purchased). Unfortunately, I think the reason why computers and phones don't last a long time now is because the companies designing the phones, computers, and operating systems WANT them to quit working.

The reason computers slow down and stop working worth a damn has nothing to do with the hardware, it's the operating system's receiving "updates" that make them quit working. I have a TRS-80 Color Computer running the Microsoft BASIC "operating system" that Bill Gates wrote himself and it still works great 40 years later.

And then the big issue with phones are the batteries. The phone manufacturers know that the batteries go bad, so they glue them into the phones so you can't replace them. Obviously if you wanted the phones to last a long time, you'd make it to where you can put a new battery in the damn thing. They also know that the screens break, so they'd make those easy to replace yourself as well if they cared.

That is nice you can take phones to those little repair places and they seem to do a nice job replacing screens and batteries, but they could probably design a phone where you can do it yourself.

One of the issues with user replaceable batteries is waterproofing (IP rating).

My first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy S1. It had an easilly swappable battery which was great because time between recharges was much shorter in those days so I had 2, one in the phone and one in the charger.

But once I got the phone wet just using it outside in the rain. After that it refused to charge for several days until it dried out.

More recently I've dropped my phone in water and it was perfecty fine with no drying time at all...

Sounds like a great and interesting engineering problem to work on.

The corporations still will not work on it though, for the exact reasons your parent commenter outlined.

I for one I am not convinced that we have to choose between swappable batteries and water-proof devices. I say we can have both -- but nobody in the business wants to figure it out, for obvious reasons.

We don't have to choose. Those phones exist, they just don't sell well. Here's one you've never heard of: https://www.samsung.com/uk/smartphones/others/galaxy-xcover7...

We have to choose between swappable batteries, waterproofness, and compactness. most people are more concerned with waterproofness and compactness, and are perfectly happy to have a phone where the battery is not field serviceable.

Resealable waterproof cases that don't require adhesives are less reliable and bulkier. Nobody really wants a waterproof phone, with a replaceable battery, that has an o-ring seal that can be defeated by a cat hair.

The phones do exist, but you have to go looking for them.

I wouldn't mind a Galaxy Xcover at all by the way, but here's one more war the corporations push people away from these devices: lack of software updates.

How about:

Waterproof phone* (excluding contacts for the battery and 3.5mm audio ports, which can be submerged without long term damage), and

Waterproofed battery* (safe to submerge, refuses to discharge unsafely).

I, personally, would also sacrifice compactness for robustness. I don't rock climb, but make a phone that can survive a tumble of multiple 10 meter drops and rolls and twists down a rock face. It must still be able to call EMS. That spec sounds bullet-proof enough to survive my relative's young kids worst antics.

The kind of phone you have described is called a 'tough phone', and typically marketed for industrial users.

I already linked to one that comes pretty close to what you want.

Yeah, now give me one with modern high end hardware.

That's the problem with these "niche" phones. Another example is Fairphone.

I don't necessarily have a problem with spending more, my problem is the fact that they compromise on things they could not compromise.

See Framework, they did it right.

This seems to have pretty modern high end hardware https://www.techradar.com/pro/phone-communications/kyocera-d...

Sadly seems to be only available through Verizon though.

Calling it middle range would be a compliment

The bottom line is you're not putting money where your mouth is. Real rugged devices can't have top notch performance because waterproofing and expanding wider operating temperature require insulation and therefore performance reduction but that's not important.

The very core of the problem is you - not personally but the vast majority would-be rugged phone buyers - just don't buy rugged phones, nor take it outdoors. People who'd demand rugged phones would just buy the latest and greatest iPhone, maybe with a case with reward points, and that covers almost every single use cases.

If there had been demand at all, the level of performance possible in a ruggedized phone will be the benchmark, and current high end will be considered over the top models with compromised ruggedness, but the reality isn't working that way at all.

And note that it comes down to what threat level it actually faces. I take my perfectly ordinary smartphone into the wilderness. It's never going to tumble down a rock face both because you'll never find me on one but because I have it lanyarded to me. It's fallen a few times, but the lanyard has kept it from hitting the ground.

You have to balance the cost of it being rugged vs the expected chance of the ruggedness keeping it from being damaged. And for most people the tradeoff isn't worth it.

There's another one on Verizon USA right now[1]. Same story: heavy, bulky, anyone who asks for it don't commit to it.

By the way, I was really surprised to learn that US Army special operations guys just procure whatever latest models of Galaxy S2x in a marginally special plastic case that clips onto a flip-down chest mount. If that's all they need for parachute jumping and covert operations as far as physical reliability is concerned, surely I am not going to need any more hardening for my daily uses.

On the other hand, I sometimes see these seriously rugged phones seriously beaten up appearing in used markets with warehouse or heavy industrial factory style damages. Clearly that's where IP56 protection is actually required and proven.

1: https://www.techradar.com/pro/phone-communications/kyocera-d...

The corporate excuse before was “no one would buy a brick”, now the excuse is “no one would buy a non-waterproof phone”. We have the technology to make a user-replaceable phone with modern parts, just look at the Fairphone.

I suspect the excuse is more like "it'll be nice if we had to warranty replace fewer water damaged phones" than it being a major selling point. Some places rain a lot, and not everyone sort trousers and purses by rain resistance.

Did any manufacturer ever replace water-damaged devices under warranty if they weren't advertised as being water resistant?

I've literally never heard of that happening, and even those that are advertised as water-resistant usually don't cover water damage under warranty.

You don't have to look at obscure stuff like that either; just look at the highly popular Samsung Galaxy S5. It was waterproof, had a headphone jack, and an easily replaced battery. And this came out 10 years ago, in 2014.

How in the world did "waterproof" become a must-have feature for phones? What the hell are y'all doing with your phones? I've never once dropped my phone in the ocean or a pool, or the toilet, or anything like that. The thing is very expensive, and I treat it carefully and delicately. Who are these people constantly submerging their phones to the point where manufacturers all decided to pay the engineering costs and tradeoffs needed to make their phones waterproof!?

You've misidentified the trade-off - it's not a choice between swappable batteries or waterproof devices - obviously either swappable or non-swappable devices can be designed to be waterproof.

The trade-off is usually size and complexity. You need more space for the seals (gaskets, O-rings etc.), and then latching mechanisms to hold covers on while applying the correct amount of pressure (and uniform pressure) on the gaskets.

That's not an especially hard an engineering problem, it just necessarily takes up more space so you end up with a bulkier device, which people tend not to like as much unless they really value being able to swap the battery.

I still have to this as an option by any manufacturer.

It becomes an engineering problem when you are trying to make it small and light.

I recently replaced the battery in my chest strap heart rate monitor. And I found I was lucky--turns out the seal had slipped and it hadn't been waterproof since the last battery change.

And I think the sealing mechanism probably increases the device volume by 50%. As a chest strap that's not a big deal.

> I am not convinced that we have to choose between swappable batteries and water-proof devices. I say we can have both

Of course we can have both. They used to exist and were reasonably common. The reason for nonswappable batteries now has exactly nothing to do with waterproofing and everything to do with cost-cutting.

1) Power. It's no great technical challenge to build electronics that would last a lifetime--but using anything resembling normal current semiconductors means that to get that life your system must run cool. Put your finger on the hottest point in the system type cool. But note that this is the enemy of computing power. Your lifetime computer is going to be a total wimp. (Yes, I realize that many of the old devices don't actually run that cool--but note that neither do they run 24/7.)

Remember the claims that the light bulb makers were conspiring to sell bulbs that would wear out when they could make ones that lasted longer? Especially since there are some pretty long-lived examples out there. Yes, they could--but you make an incandescent light last longer by running it cooler. But that means more of the energy in the infrared rather than the visible spectrum. Long life bulbs produce less light for a given amount of power.

2) Weight. Yes, we had replaceable batteries--but that meant extra material required to make it easy to change the battery. Batteries always have housings. While lithium secondary batteries without housings exist they must be treated with a certain amount of respect and are incapable of self-defense against sloppy electronics. Your phone with an easily replaced battery is inherently bulkier and heavier than one without. Likewise, building something so it can be taken apart makes it bigger and heavier than the glued-together equivalent.

3) Waterproofing. I am not aware of any way of making an efficient waterproof, easily replaceable battery. And waterproof seals that you can open are troublesome, especially if you want to make them small and light.

4) Efficiency. My understanding is that in most cases the optimal design devotes enough to reliability/lifespan that half of the specimens will wear out before something bad happens to them.

The market wants light, powerful, as close to waterproof as possible phones. That means sealed units that are typically uneconomic to repair.

> meant extra material required to make it easy to change the battery.

it doesn't need to be easy, nor user-replacible. It just needs to be _replacible_ by a professional, with readily available equipment that you'd expect a repair shop to have. Make the parts available for purchase, or have the specs be open for third-party production.

But companies, such as apple, deliberately make their parts incompatible, even if salvaged from a different phone. It's to thwart repairs specifically, and they cite theft prevention as the reason (which i claim is bs - they could allow repairs by having the owner authorize secondary sale of old phones as parts, which still prevents thefts).

Perhaps if there was a delayed authentication system. As it stands, their system isn't good enough because it lets the mugger demand you sign off so the phone is unlocked.

Haven't we basically already built them? They're just slow and not supported by software vendors so nobody wants to use them. Other than replacing capacitors and realtime clock batteries on every 20 years or so, dusting and replacing fans when bearings go bad (assuming it's not a passively-cooled design), most computers should basically last beyond a human lifetime (I've read that those less than ~20nm will go bad over time as traces lose atoms and eventually fail, but older processes should be fine).

> Haven't we basically already built them?

Yes, we have. I have a few computers that old or older, and they run just fine. Every so often a dried-up capacitor has to be replaced, but that's about it.

Are you talking about C64?

One of them is in interstellar space

Two.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/mission-overview/

Not just interstellar space. Everything in space needs to be radiation hardened, thus equal to a 50 year old computer.

They do use laptops, but not for much longer than a year. The basics must endure longer.

> older processes should be fine

Except for metal whiskering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)

However the older solders have a much higher percentage of lead in their composition which makes whiskering less likely. I have two Zenith Z-120s made in about 1980 and thus coming up on 50 years old which don’t have any issues.

I know of a running TRS80 and a BBC Model-B, but the retro-heads who own them jst pwer them up now and then, not in constant use so as not to heat-stress them. TBH they smell a bit. My theory is the transformer windings are on the way out.

Wire-wrap avoids that altogether: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wrap

Hard drives will probably go bad before capacitors, most of the time.

An excuse to link one of my favorite NASA/Honeywell slideshows:

https://c3.ndc.nasa.gov/dashlink/static/media/other/Observed...

The long story short is that there are byzantine failure methods which prevent a 50 year computer. A sample:

- Capacitors can act as bullets

- Forced air cooling creating water

- The smaller the parts, the greater the chance they'll transmute to another part. Even, or especially in solid state parts.

- Digital isn't (i.e. 1 isn't really full voltage, and 0 isn't really no voltage).

- Thermal expansion matters, even for ICs on a board.

- Wire length, and the position of sensors on that wire, matters.

A 50 year computer would probably have to be one in which each part can and is replaced on a schedule. And the faster the computer is, the more often parts would need to be replaced. Additionally, if we want 100% uptime there would also have to be sufficient redundancies to ensure that the computer could continue operating during failures or replacements of components.

The 'survivor bunker' control computer that has maintenance every 5, even 10, years does have a different specification than one that must survive untouched, 'mothballed', for 50+ years and still work properly. In both cases I would prefer a standard modular interface, ideally a presently popular one like USB-A since I doubt it'll be a while before that's completely phased out. Even then it'll be someone's hobby project to have a not-quite off the shelf adapter.

So much for exploring space beyond the solar system, then. If it takes more than a hundred years to get anywhere, all your automated control systems are dead.

They are talking about individual components and what _can_ happen.

What you can in these cases is a whole other layer of engineering.

You want multiple redundancies. With concensus of independent units running. So have something like 15 guidance computers. 5 running (so that each has 2 back-ups) and their output goes to concensus to determine the actual action. Of course the concensus mechanism will need redundancy so maybe each concensus mechanism controls between 0-25% of the throttle...

It's all doable. It's just hard.

A lot of their failures were "redundant" systems that weren't truly redundant.

Don't use tantalum or electrolytic capacitors, lead-free solder, BGA-packaged ICs, exposed (non-stainless) steel, paper, or plastic, and most problems are mitigated by design. And use good halogen- and bromine-free fiberglass PCBs. There isn't anything to wear out or replace in such a properly-designed machine of modern design and manufacturing. If manufactured correctly, boards can be entirely encapsulated under an inert, dry atmosphere such that there won't be any moisture or oxygen to attack components over time. Basically, it would be able to last physically for centuries. The main sources of fragility would be the power supply and the permanent storage device such as an SSD or HDD. The former is generic enough to be trivial to retrofit. The latter could use SLC, RS/Turbo coding, and write minimization and buffering to extend the life beyond ordinary expected lifecycle.

I kind of feel like we’re rapidly approaching an end of history point on computing. The joke in the late 90s/early 00s was that your computer became obsolete on the way home from the store. My computing upgrade cycles have been getting longer and longer. Same with phones. I last upgraded my iPhone in 2022 not because I needed to (it was three years old), but because I wanted some of the newer features. What used to be a 2-year cycle like clockwork has stretched to 3 or 4 years. My laptop cycle has gone from 3 years to 5 years and that last only because the display stopped working (it’s now running headless in my music studio). The limiting factor has become less one of functionality and one of durability, and while there’s work to be done there, right now the economic factors don’t make sense. As revenue shifts to services from hardware though, I expect to see a greater emphasis on long-lasting computers until the expectation is that a computer, phone or tablet is expected to have a 10–15 year lifespan.

I have a 2014 macbook that I still use pretty regularly.

The only longevity issue is the battery, which is a limited lifetime part no matter what, and no support for the newest Xcode, which is unfortunate, but not a real limitation on what I use it for. It's something that I could probably work around by using opencore.

Its kind of crazy TBH. A 2004 macbook (powerbook?) would have been genuinely outdated in 2014, but in 2024, my 10 year old laptop is... fine?

Same thing with my phones. I went from an iphone 4, to a 5, to a 6 to an 11. And there I have stayed. There are a few features that would be nice to have, but not enough for me to fork over the cash. And my old one still does everything fine.

The real limitations are the incompatibilities with new APIs. I fixed up an old macbook air I found at a recycling center for a friend's kid (2011?) and getting it setup took some time since the imaged version of Safari incompatible with modern HTTPS. Once I cleared that hump, though, it was a great machine for youtube, browsing, etc...

> in 2024, my 10 year old laptop is... fine?

Except for the lack of security updates and it chokes when playing 1080p youtube videos and such.

Also, I doubt you've used any Apple Silicon systems. I had a MBP of similar vintage with a discreet GPU, with an upgraded SSD much faster than stock, and the M1 that replaced it was "holy shit" levels faster; now they're on the third gen with the fourth about to make it into portables and workstations.

It works fine pushing 1440 or 4k, last I checked. I don't have it hooked up to a 4k monitor anymore, but I have no reason to believe that it would have stopped doing it. It does have a discreet GPU, and quite a bit of ram. Its not like 1080p content was pushing the limits of what a macbook could accomplish in 2014, so why would it choke now?

The new apple silicon is undeniably faster and more efficient, but the point is that there is, for most intents and purposes, nothing that the old machine can't run that a new one can (unpatched MacOS excepted, but OpenCore or Linux solves for that).

Again, I'm not saying that things haven't improved, just saying that a 10 year old computer is still a good machine, in a way that has never been true in the past of personal computing.

Compare a consumer computer from 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014 and 2024. The delta between each step is pretty massive up until the last 10 years.

Most GPUs and iGPUs have had H.264 decoders for over 15 years.

In theory any computer with a PCI slot can play 1080p with no frame drops.

Yea, really Youtube and browser bloat is the problem. one more reason to pirate.

Yeah, YT is baaad. Got a linux laptop (more expensive than a MB at the time, for reference) a few years back, with a i7 quad/octo? core. Couldn't decode youtube at 1080p without max rpm on all fans >_<

OSX Monterey continued to receive security updates until the release of Sequoia last month, which means a 10 year old mac mini would have continued to receive patches.

Devices compatible with Monterey (mostly 2015 models, oldest is 2013 mac pro trashcan) https://support.apple.com/en-us/103260

The speed bump is less noticeable to me thanks to software bloat than the battery efficiency. I can often go a day and a half on battery power and it’s a bit disconcerting how fast it charges.

> Same thing with my phones. I went from an iphone 4, to a 5, to a 6 to an 11. And there I have stayed. There are a few features that would be nice to have, but not enough for me to fork over the cash. And my old one still does everything fine.

My iPhone 7 (Plus? whatever the called the big one) still seems a totally serviceable phone from my limited use, although substantially slower than my 12.

It's not been supported for some years now, but I still boot it occasionally and it's far from useless and probably more performant than a low/mid tier Android phone from 3-4 years ago.

Yeah, my desktop computer is also from 2014. I changed nothing but the graphics card in 2022 and I can play games with pretty good performance, most of the time in 4K.

I have a 4090 plugged into an 11 year old x79 motherboard. Feels weird.

In the 1980s AT&T was designing cabinet-sized minicomputers that would have less than 2 hours downtime in 40 years and went to great lengths to enable software update without reboot (functions accessed via transfer vectors) and ability to survive and continue running through earthquakes. These are still running I gather as part of various phone switching systems 4ESS, 5ESS although the hardware has been "reengineered." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3B_series_computers .

I think we have reached a point in tech where there isn't a huge benefit about changing computer every 3 years like in the past.

You can have a computer with 10 years that can run modern OSs and software without being incompatible or too slow, a thing totally impossible 20 years ago.

If you do AI related developement or play videogames, you would require at least a new GPU, but outside that, I think the only couple things (pretty major IMO) making those computers less useful are more complex video formats not available to decode by hardware, and the vast amount of code some web apps use (try using YouTube or Twitter in an old laptop)

Security issues are the driver now. I had to shut down some machines at work last month because their CPUs have a microcode flaw that the vendor is not releasing a fix for.

That heavily depends on your usage. Most microcode security issues are local-only, so if your use case doesn't require the local execution of arbitrary executable code, all you lost is one extra security layer, which would become relevant only if other security layers (the ones which prevent arbitrary local code execution in the first place) fail.

It is my understanding that due to the structure of modern web browsers it is by design that they execute arbitrary code from various sources, be it plugins or updates or whatever, and due to the microcode issue any flaw in any of those was equivalent to a full system compromise at the firmware level and could persist across a wipe/reimage of the machine. My management was not comfortable accepting that risk.

Even GPUs have quite a long lifespan. I finally retired my 980ti which was used for Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield. It's 10 years old!

Most modern MOS circuits are no longer designed to last 50 years, unlike most integrated circuits and discrete semiconductor devices of 50 years ago. There is no chance for any up-to-date CPU or memory module to work for 50 years.

Nevertheless, it is quite easy to be able to use a modern computer for 50 years, if you just get 10 computers that do not contain components that age even when they are not used, e.g. batteries or electrolytic capacitors, and you use one computer until it breaks, keeping the others in storage until you must replace the current work computer.

Such a set of modern computers would be faster, cheaper and smaller than a single computer in the style of PDP-11 or VAX, made by using low-density components that can work for 50 years.

The web sure is convenient, but for the actual work I do, I could in fact work on a 30 to 35 year old computer. I mostly code, and occasionally I process words or spread sheets. All things I could do on a DOS machine, or even something like an Apple //e. I'd certainly be fine on an Amiga. I'd be on cloud nine with a NeXTCube. I don't know that I'm willing to go older than early 80s, though. I need my computer to at least handle both uppercase and lowercase.

So arguably we've already built computers that last 40 years. Another decade doesn't seem crazy.

This is also why when we eventually do have a breakthrough in AI or quantum computing, it wont change anything. We'll just use AI to serve ads on Quantum Facebook, or something equally useless. So many web frameworks have come out in the past 10 years and more then ever websites are spammy, bloated, and less intuitive than they were 10 years ago.

I love wikipedia because it's more performant than facebook or youtube, it doesn't track me, it doesn't have anything moving or sliding around the page to increase "engagement" ,, it just gives me info without making me fight for it. I wish every website was wikipedia. I don't need react or angular, I don't 60fps buttons with smooth gradients. I just want my info

Yeah, it's mostly about "last 50 years doing what?".

Someone else mentioned the Voyager space probes. I think there are cars from the 70s and 80s with some embedded computers and some of these are still on the road too. The computer electronics can be made robust if desired. The hard part is if you mean "general purpose" and you want to include purposes of the future that we haven't explored yet.

I've recently powered up some "portable" Toshiba computers from around 1990. Aside from the CMOS clock batteries being dead and resetting to the wrong time, they booted DOS and I was able to use their existing programs to inspect the existing data files, delete things, and run a disc scrubbing utility. The vacuum fluorescent display worked like new, the hard drive still worked, etc.

These would still work for word processing etc. But with their RAM, storage, and IO limitations, they wouldn't work for modern use cases with modern sized media payloads.

I recall my 386-class machine that supported my computer science course work in university. It was able to barely decode a short 320x240 ~10 fps MPEG video demo from a research group. Its entire disk space was only about 80 MB, whereas today I may have bigger files than that on my phone.

You could build some kind of Computer of Theseus that has sensible buses and modular pieces to allow it to be expanded over time to support new use cases. I think they are called "mainframes". But, economics aren't going to make this cheap and competitive enough for consumer use cases.

This is what desktop PCs were for us in recent decades. It's not going to make it 50 years, but we got a lot of mileage out of the various buses and power connectors to allow incremental upgrades of parts. Eventually, you wipe the slate to get rid of some of the most legacy parts, buses, and form factors. Nobody's PC power supply from 1990 was going to support a modern GPU, not to mention the changing power needs of CPUs and mainboards.

Computers continue to work "forever" if you only use its own closed system, like writing Word documents on the harddrive. It's the complexity of the internet that makes hardware obsolete today. The internet consists of too many parts working together to make it profitable to focus on longevity and stability, the focus on the internet is instead flexibility and broad usage. And it's mostly the security standards that force us to buy new hardware in the end. From SSL to TLS, to TLS 1.2 & 1.3, almost all sites upgraded to the new standards and made old web browsers not work to browse the internet with anymore. And if the newest web browser your computer supports is one before 2014 (before TLS 1.2), your computer is dead, because it can't visit the internet. So it's mostly the software layer of the internet that makes us not get "forever computers", and therefore "we" software people maybe are the ones with the power to make a change here?

It's the misalignment of software developers' interests with those of end users that makes old systems unusable. Do we really need web pages that stream 4 video ads on loading and have another pop-up over top of the content the user requested asking us to subscribe? I miss the simplicity of the old days.

Yes when it comes to updates and new features and other stuff where the user does things for the developer and not the opposite (like when I have to login to Microsoft to play Minecraft, even though everything I need is on my local drive), that’s true. Developers think users want shiny buttons and the newest design, but the users probably rather want functional easy to use sites without forcing updates.

But when it comes to security standards users and devlopers seem to agree, they both seem fine with leaving HTTP behind, even for sites without sensitive information whatsoever, and the users even seem to accept replacing their phone every 2-5 years. Or maybe they’re just used to it and don’t know things could be better?

I'm using TLS 1.3 based sites with Dillo just fine.

https://caniuse.com/?search=TLS%201.3

E-ink maybe isn't it, anyway. A few years ago I built an e-ink clock/gimmick that refreshed every few seconds with some different text on a given part of the screen, and within 1.5 years the sides unto about 2cm in - but not the parts being constantly refreshed! - had more stuck/weak pixels than not. A halo of rot. 50 years is a long time, much longer than 1.5.

> Lots of writers keep using [typewriters], they became trendy in the 2010s and, to escape surveillance, some secret services started to use them back. It’s a very niche but existing market.

At first blush, this sentiment appears to also be true of old computers. There is growing "trendy" interest in them, and they're otherwise still fit for purpose for some tasks, like gaming, writing, driving long-unsupported hardware or software. The community around it has been rather industrious in servicing old machines, particularly Macs.

But they cannot satisfy all the requirements we have of a modern computer, and neither can a typewriter. However, the length of time a computer has before being truly obsolete seems much longer now than it used to be. You could easily get a decade or more if you can control the itch for new and shiny and have modest performance needs.

Might need to replace the battery, if the device has one. There's some luck involved with getting the longest support window possible from MS or Apple. Google and co are famously a lot worse on this front, if we're talking phones.

This feels like a really interesting idea that would benefit from a real world use case.

As it is now, the main motivation is "save your attention, your wallet, your creativity, your soul and the planet" which to me sounds like no specific purpose, which makes it hard to imagine if the result will have any use in 50 years.

As a comparison point this story about warning signs [0] makes the challenges a lot more palatable, and that's how I'd see any chance of success for a product design.

And that makes me wonder how many actual long lasting computer projects already exist in the world, for instance to control nuclear reactors, to activate water pumping stations, control emergency valves etc.

[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/article/beyond-biohazard-dang...

A wholly wasted effort.

If civilization survives they will have the equipment to detect a nuclear hazard and they will preserve the meaning for long enough for it not to be a big deal. If civilization does not survive an old waste facility is a very minor issue in comparison.

Likewise, biohazards will simply not be a threat for long enough for the meaning to be lost unless things fall apart at which point again it's a very minor issue in comparison.

https://hackaday.com/2019/12/06/visiting-the-facom-128b-1958...

I was quite impressed to learn about the 66 year-old computer that is still in use with the Japanese transit system.

The oldest computer that I run regularly is an Amiga 3000. It's now 33 years old, yet the system has everything it needs to run lots of excellent and modern software: 16 megs of memory, a SCSI bus that can take drives of any size, decent resolution graphics that can be used on many modern monitors and TVs, a processor with an MMU, and a good keyboard and mouse.

Add an ethernet card and perhaps a Zorro III RAM card, and it's usable even on the modern Internet: modern TLS works, and for sites that are too complex for AmigaDOS browsers, there are public proxies that can help.

While I wouldn't suggest anyone tries to get serious work done on the modern Internet using an original, unaccelerated Amiga 3000, it makes an excellent example of how things really haven't changed aside from speed and size since we moved to 32 bit CPUs with MMUs.

Something like this could easily be used for non-Internet heavy tasks for fifty years. We just need to be aware of the things that typically fail, such as bearings and capacitors.

I couldn't help thinking of the AlphaSmart[0] while reading this. The writer's primary need seems to be an offline, lasts-forever writing device, so no version of the AlphaSmart meets all the criteria. But it is (or was) an offline-only device that was limited to writing and a few educational applications. The keyboard was excellent, text could be transferred between device and computer via cable, and the AA-batteries would last for literally hundreds of hours.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart

i like to think about thought experiments like this: what if electronics/large consumer goods were all bar-coded and, when they are disposed of, scanned in, and the original manufacturer is charged some fee for the recycling/disposal of them. Make "repairing with minimal waste" the recurring revenue that product companies shoot for, rather than the new new thing.

Whether it happens in tens, hundreds, thousands, or more years, every physical product has a finite lifespan.

So it might be simpler to charge a fee when a product is initially manufactured that is based on the current cost of disposing that product. Perhaps this could even replace things like consumer sales tax or VAT.

That would incentivize manufacturers to create products with minimal disposal costs, and it would incentivize consumers to hang on to products longer or buy used.

And it'd also open up a whole new exciting Futures market!

We've had this in France for a bit more than 10 years: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éco-participation

It's a fixed fee based on the category of the device though, so not really an incentive for companies to change their ways, other than moving the entire business line from making iPhones to light bulbs.

I guess the point of charging the company at the time of disposal would be that they'd be earning interest on that money in the meantime. So they'd be incented to make it last longer.

It wouldn't work for several reasons though, not least because the company could cease to exist before the product failed.

Canada charges a recycling fee when you purchase electronics. The claim is that it covers all costs of recycling at an audited/approved recycler.

When you are done with your electronics you can drop them off at any recycling center to be disposed.

It varies by province, but the cost is actually pretty minimal. I think the most expensive fee in my province is a large display at $7. The recycling fee for a laptop is less than a dollar.

It doesn't incentivize less consumption when you are paying the tax up front, but it does incentivize making sure that the electronics actually make it to the correct waste stream instead of the landfill.

Recycling, as is, means reducing something to its component materials. We need to incentivize manufacturers such that it means reducing something to its component parts. Testable parts, with standard interfaces.

Perhaps we should have that bar code link to a prepaid account which handles shipping it back to the manufacturer. Things will be more repairable if making the most of a broken one was the manufacturer's problem.

It would be more interesting if the fee was decreasing with item age.

>But this permanent connectivity is a choice. We can design a computer to be offline first. Once connected, it will synchronise everything that needs to be: mails will be sent and received, news and podcasts will be downloaded from your favourite websites and RSS, files will be backuped, some websites or gemini pods could even be downloaded until a given depth. This would be something conscious. The state of your sync will be displayed full screen. By default, you would not be allowed to use the computer while it is online. You would verify that all the sync is finished then take the computer back offline. Of course, the full screen could be bypassed but you would need to consciously do it. Being online would not be the mindless default.

Offpunk. Slrn with slrnpull and mutt +mbsync/msmtp. Heaven.

Offpunk:

https://sr.ht/~lioploum/offpunk/

When I studied ASIC design, it taught me that the complexity increases and reliability decreases every time they shrink a process node. There’s increased variation, degradation, etc. One paper on 130nm to 90nm said they had to build digital monitoring or correction when in the analog parts while cell phones were mixing in analog to save energy (mixed-signal).

The point is that having the reliability of older computers might require the older, simpler hardware they were using. More breakage might be an inherent tradeoff of using modern processes, at least up to a point.

I still have always wanted to see someone mix low-cost components with the older, patent-free, NonStop architectures. The desktops would look like the dual-motherboard SGI’s with pluggable CPU’s, etc. Just replace what breaks with the system chugging along using other components.

Desktop PC hardware is sufficiently modular and easy to upgrade. It would be nice if upgrades were add-on rather than throwing away the replaced module(s) but HW changes so fast it's almost never worth it. Software could be improved to make things longer lasting such as make clean install trivial with good separation of user vs system data. I recently added an SSD and made my old HDD the G: drive but the new instance of Windows on the SSD did not consider the new SSD userid with the same name as the old HDD userid to be the same user and so accessing the old files became a file sharing nightmare. Also the old HDD drive started taking forever for reboot file system checks and I had to just disconnect it. So now I am wading through all my old backups trying to figure out what is what.

I have a Tandy trs-80 model 100 which is at least 40 years old. Not so far from the 50 year mark.

I have been thinking about this topic for some time, but my focus was a bit different. I wanted to know what would take to make a computer where the state is always preserved, meaning reboots are never required, but most importantly whatever you have been working with is always the exact way you left.

Somehow I think with the current culture of updates, which is linked to security requirements and ultimately to the fact your computer is always connected to the internet are fundamentally incompatible, thus this kind of computer would need also to be offline, but certainly there are tricks like live kernel updates that could be employed to extend uptime as long as possible.

A good laptop will last for 5-10 years, about as long a car, I guess. 20 year laptops (Thinkpads mostly) are still around.

If average laptop lifetime is about 5 years (for all reasons), then about 0.1% will make it to 50 years and remain operational.

The average car on the road is 12 years old in the us. I suspect average laptop is around 4.

Modern notebooks don't last. You drop it 3-4 times and the hinges are busted.

I don’t agree. There were old tanks, sure, but regular laptops were plastic and flimsy. Even PowerBooks would slightly flex when handled by the edges.

Apple led the way with the unibody aluminum case and now even midrange laptops are pretty sturdy.

Only for consumer-grade stuff, which is basically disposable garbage that's obsolete the day you purchase it, which is about what you get for $350 at Walmart. For any actually decent laptop designed for enterprises/businesses, this is not true, they still have steel hinge pins and plastic-over-metal hinge bodies. Doesn't really matter if you buy Dell, Lenovo, Apple, business-quality laptops don't have these issues, but they do start at around $1000/unit.

The problem with any discussion around electronics longevity is that it's a bimodal market. You have the stuff that generates the bulk of revenue, which is generally meant to be purchased as a "fleet" by businesses or MSPs, and you have the stuff that generates the bulk of the actual devices, but at most lower BOM cost (meaning lower quality) which is targeted at "consumers". Anybody who is even a little bit technical has already noticed this simply due to the difference in experience between the laptop they're issued at work vs what they may have once had at home, and likely has opted to bite the bullet and pay for quality.

Once you are on the higher end of the bimodal distribution, longevity is a significantly different challenge. I have an X230 laptop I bought new in 2012 that is still in use weekly and functions completely fine. My much newer M3 Macbook Pro is significantly more powerful, but is completely unnecessary for what that laptop is for. That's 12 years of usage without any sign of slowing down, and since that X230 is my car laptop I use in my race car for tuning and data monitoring, I can guarantee it's had a lot worse than "3-4 drops" over the last 12 years, including surviving a crash in my old race car.

Modern cars don't last. You crash them three or four times and the wheels fall off.

Mildly tech-savvy people make weird choices. Pointing at thicker laptops and calling it outdated and unattractive, for example.

Laptops and also smartphones dont last in my experience.. Too much miniaturisation imo. I dont buy them 2nd hand, I only buy new ones as they only have a limited life. Desktops on the other hand, will last forever, I buy those 2nd hand and they are so cheap but they function perfectly.. Also if something does break they are modular and its trivial to replace the broken part.

It greatly depends on the laptop, even within the same manufacturer. I have lots of old Apple gear that still works but is just too old to get security updates:

- 2012 13" MBP, works great with an SSD upgrade, and the hinge is still solid, which was not the case with my 2009 15" MBP where the screen literally ripped off.

- 2013 15" retina MBP. Great laptop, still plenty fast to use today, but runs a little hot and the battery life was never amazing.

- 2015 12" retina Macbook. Survived two glasses of water spilled on it, but the speakers and bluetooth died. It was miserably slow to use anyway.

My daily driver is now a 15" M3 Macbook, which has been amazing in nearly every way. Only minor complaints is that the ram maxes out at 24GB and I wish I had 1 more USB port on the other side.

I think the trick here is going to be using at a minimum only automotive rated parts or better, FRAM storage if possible, tantalum and ceramic caps, things like that.

Speculatively, with AI moving along as it is, a “computer” might be very much like a typewriter, primarily a device for creating documents, getting them to peripherals, etc for the human user and their AI ghost/API.

With thermodynamic neural nets, especially if we can get them working at room temperature, we could easily see a situation where it would be more cost and power efficient to have local generative AI simulate standard computer architecture than to actually build a Von Neumann computer from discrete components.

If we can get the thermodynamic wells down to the size of flash cells, that could mean running 1024b models locally on chips the size of an SD card, peaking at around 20 watts at full utilisation.

I could easily see using MCU scale compute to run a stripped down system to provide the wireframe from which the GAI could hang on the pixels and pizaz, helping the user to stay on the rails of a strictly deterministic system while decorating it with GAI. A “50 year computer” might be useful as a stand alone, but basically be an interface device when combined with generative AI running on devices that would probably be much more needful to keep current.

MOCAS is still going from 1958... Hardware has been updated a few times and it currently runs on a IBM 2098 model E-10 mainframe (2008?)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/06/166822/what-is-t...

Regarding software longevity, IBM's z/Architecture mainframes are backward compatible descendants of the System/360 family (1964).

DOS programs from 1981 can still run on modern x86 PC hardware, natively or via virtualization. HP laptops and Dell n Series "no OS" machines can still run FreeDOS.

And of course emulation (DOSbox etc.) doesn't even require compatible hardware.

Regarding hardware longevity, as noted in other comments, many PCs from the 1970s (Apple II, CP/M, etc.) and 1980s (IBM PC and compatibles, Macintosh, etc.) are still functional today.

The voyager spacecrafts are almost fifty years old.

This is a great thought experiment!

The design goal is to build a computer that lasts 50 years. To me this implies a design that is modular and repairable and possibly not based on something you can buy today. I don't want to base my computer on the products that existed 50 years ago or the products I can buy today.

What would I give up in order to get a computer (hardware and software) that lasts 50 years? Size, weight, speed, complexity. Sure.

We now know a lot about change so I need a device that accounts for almost every technology that I use today to have evolved significantly. So I need some long term features.

I want to think in terms of modules, which may be independent physical things. I also want a case to put it all in.

Over the next 50 years I (and my grandchildren) need to be able to repair and replace any part that breaks and continue to evolve the modules that I use, the case and the way the modules interact with each other. My needs will continue to evolve. The rest of the world will continue to evolve around me and I still want to interact with it and its services.

I think some things are constant. I need power; a way to input data; process and store it; usefully share it with others; and a way to output that data.

My modules may therefore include a keyboard, some sort of pointing device and potentially other input devices in the future; a power supply; a bunch of CPU's for various purposes in one or more modules; a set of storage and archive devices; networking; one or more output devices, perhaps a screen or two.

Perhaps the most important thing is an idea, philosophy and a clear idea of what I want the device to do. The article talks about typewriters which are clear on each of these points. I also like the idea that I will need an emotional investment in whatever I end up with.

If I wanted to experiment today I would start with a bunch of Raspberry Pi's and their kindred microcontrollers. Each of my modules would contain one or more of these devices. I would pick a set of connection standards. I don't know where the idea's go from there but it would be fun to find out!

I’m going on 7 years with my iMac Pro now and it’s still more than enough for my uses. (Audio recording/production) I am hoping to get 3 more years out of it if possible. We’ll see if Apple lets that happen.

If you do that work professionally, optimizing solely for capex while ignoring opex and the cost of business interruption, is not sound.

Voyager 1 and 2 are still functioning. And they were built on the cheap.. They certainly weren't supposed to last 47 years but they did.

We're regressing. My last computer was a thinkpad x220t, with a life of 10 years. After that I bought an ideapad. It is now in its 3rd year, and the hinges between body and screen have already broken off and been reglued in 3 different places. That last repair was once to many, and I see myself buying a new laptop in the near future.

The Thinkpad series is performance oriented and business grade.

The Ideapad series is performance and price point oriented and consumer grade.

The most expensive off the shelf Ideapad on the lenovo website is cheaper than the cheapest Thinkpad x-series. You bought a cheaper laptop, and it wasn't as durable as a series of laptops that is advertised as more durable. I'm not sure that we are regressing in this case.

Buy a modern equivalent to your Thinkpad x220t like another Thinkpad x-series if you want x-series durability.

Surprisingly, nobody has mentioned missile silos.

Talk about a killer app.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/17/the-us-nuclear-fo...

By contrast, we have to change our laptops every three or four years. Our phones every couple of years. And all other pieces of equipment (charger,router, modem,printers,…) need to be changed regularly.

This is such a horseshit statement. We change those things because of social pressure, not because they wear out. My mother is still using her first generation iphone SE, eight years later. It still facetimes and texts and watches netflix just like it did in 2016. The Nighthawk R7000 router I bought 11 years ago still isn't fully saturated by my network traffic. I have USB chargers in use that came with phones I bought in 2009. My HP printer/scanner is from 2005 and they still make cartridges for it.

Naval ships are loaded with them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_gun_fire-control_system...

The Apple IIGs exists. I have one. I think it's going to make it to 50 no problem.

I really vibe with the author’s vision: an offline-first computer, made to last.

(2021)

Voyager is still going, qndand has a computer by very early definition.

someone needs to bring up the indestructable Nokia

PDP-11

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