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the Singulariy

Its funny 2 or 3 years ago i was turning down c64s as i had 8 already. Sin e then they shot up in price. I sold one a year ago selling anothet one in the next month or so. I dont get too many offers for people selling them anymore and when i do they laughably ask for $300 to 500 for an as is machine.
 
This probably deserves it's own thread honestly, but I'm not sure there ever will be a singularity if initiatives like this continue into the future:
https://www.fossi-foundation.org/2020/06/30/skywater-pdk

Basically, Google is funding the creation of IC's on 130nm nodes, free of charge. Not sure what strings are attached, but to my untrained eye, I couldn't find any red flags. Goes without saying that given Google's notoriously finnicky reputation, this initiative won't last forever. But there's the possibility more companies could offer similar initiatives in the future, or that the underlying technology could become cheaper and more accessible to begin with. This would still leave ROMs, RAM and quartz crystals as critical components that could potentially fail, but my understanding is that it's a lot easier to replicate those with modern components (provided you have the ROM image anyways). Point is, in 50 years printing a replacement IC on ancient nodes might be just as trivial as designing a replacement ISA board in KiCAD and having that printed today. Then again, who knows. Maybe in the future we'll move to Gallium or light-based computers and silicon as a whole will become extinct. But I'm hopeful that won't be the case.

Regardless, I'm more worried about the storage media singularity. I'd reckon that most vintage computers surviving to present day (that is to say, no significant damage, and kept in good conditions) are still in workable condition, and will be for some time outside of easily avoided capacitor and battery problems. By comparison, there's already a large amount of hard drives and floppy media that are either dead or in the process of dying, for the simple fact that they don't age well. I like the appeal of clunky obsolete media, so I'll be sad if the day ever comes that I no longer having any working floppies, and can't hear the whir of a huge hard drive spinning up.
 
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you're confusing things. An old computer w/a newly engineered ic is no longer strictly vintage. You can replace every ic on an old motherboard and having something that is essentially a replica. The Singularity is near.

Please don't run Google down the way you do. Some people here work for them, and need a safe place to hide out. Brings some coloring books and chocolate bars too!
 
tipc said:
you're confusing things. An old computer w/a newly engineered ic is no longer strictly vintage.
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I'd tend to disagree, but I'm also willing to admit it's a matter of opinion. It's basically the age old Ship of Theseus question. Is a vintage computer with all new ICs even the same computer? If not, when did it change? People have debated this for millennia.
 
you're confusing things. An old computer w/a newly engineered ic is no longer strictly vintage. You can replace every ic on an old motherboard and having something that is essentially a replica.
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Yeah, no.
Replacing one/multiple/every IC on an original board is not "essentially a replica". The board itself is still a product of the original assembly of the machine. IC replacement due to failure in my mind does not necessarily impact the integrity or value of the device as it is a product of a repair. People who up their noses at old machines with non-date matching components (I guess the Apple 1 is an exemption here as their owners are C O M P L E T E L Y thinking in another universe) are completely irrational.

To pull up an example, here is a prewar EMI 907 Television. http://www.radiocraft.co.uk/602.htm
It arrived in poor condition, required a tube replacement with a model that was never designed for the chassis and a few modern enhancements to make up for availability, but in the end all care was taken to keep the machine looking original. Significant work was required to make it work and look good again, but does it make it any less original? Does it alter the final product to the point you can differentiate the changes? Is this any different than changing IC's that are visually and pin-for-pin identical?
 
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tipc said:
you're confusing things. An old computer w/a newly engineered ic is no longer strictly vintage. You can replace every ic on an old motherboard and having something that is essentially a replica. The Singularity is near.
Click to expand...

Something being akin to a replica really has no bearing on whether or not it is vintage when you think about it. The design is still the same- and as long as the parts that make up the whole serve the same function exactly -then by all accounts it still is a vintage device. How something was done, in my opinion, is far more important than the exact set of parts that left a factory 40 years ago.

You wouldn't go to a car meet and try to tell a guy his '68 Mustang isn't a classic car anymore just because he had to replace most of the OEM parts to restore it. He'd call you crazy.
 
NeXT said:
Yeah, no.
Replacing one/multiple/every IC on an original board is not "essentially a replica".
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Not what I said, not what I said, not what I said. Did you see what you did there? Why do people have to do that? I maintain that replacing *every* ic on a board reduces it to a replica. Replacing 1 or 2 chips is "acceptable". Just replace everything if you replace *all* the electronics.

Items have rarity because they're rare. You can't reproduce a vintage item. You can reproduce an item, even exactly reproduce it's exact makeup. But it'll never be original.
 
I imagine that once silicon (not silicone) printing and PCB printers become a thing (it's already a thing in the early stages but fully usable), combined with the then advanced 3D printers of the world, in 50-years time you'll be able to download a file package of any retro computer/gaming console, print an entirely functional unit with a click of a bottom using said advanced printers and materials, plug it in and go.

It sounds kind of sci-fi but look at where we're at now.
 
MindThreat said:
I imagine that once silicon (not silicone) printing and PCB printers become a thing (it's already a thing in the early stages but fully usable), combined with the then advanced 3D printers of the world, in 50-years time you'll be able to download a file package of any retro computer/gaming console, print an entirely functional unit with a click of a bottom using said advanced printers and materials, plug it in and go.

It sounds kind of sci-fi but look at where we're at now.
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There may be more technical challenges than just ICs and PCBs. When you can 3D-print your own functional vacuum tubes, including CRTs, then we'll talk. ;)
 
My 2¢. It's not vintage unless it's old, thus vintage. Go to a major car show like the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance[FONT=Roboto, arial, sans-serif] and you'll find a class for "replicas". A bonafide replacement of an original part with an original part does not disqualify a vintage entrant. In my view, if you sneak a new or 3rd party pcb into that Altair 8800 it's no longer vintage. However, if you replace a board with a vintage board you vintage classification remains, and same goes for components. Tough nut to swallow but that's the way it is. So, go ahead and start an argument.[/FONT]
 
Someone told me Almond Milk isn't Milk because it didn't come from a cow. By thier logic no liquid from anything other than a cow can be classified as milk. Removing ALL other mammals from the classification in the process. So I rest my case......
 
VERAULT said:
Someone told me Almond Milk isn't Milk because it didn't come from a cow. By thier logic no liquid from anything other than a cow can be classified as milk. Removing ALL other mammals from the classification in the process. So I rest my case......
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Is not the discussion about new vs. old? I don't see how sources enter into this.
 
VERAULT said:
Someone told me Almond Milk isn't Milk because it didn't come from a cow. By thier logic no liquid from anything other than a cow can be classified as milk. Removing ALL other mammals from the classification in the process. So I rest my case......
Click to expand...

People generally don't deal w/milk from other animals. Such as goat's milk, what I had to imbibe when I was a baby due to some sort of disorder. I haven't imbibed any since. Your friend is arguing that what we commonly refer to as milk, that is from a cow, is real milk. Any substitute, barring that which comes from another animal, isn't actually milk, and he's correct. We can call Budweiser mixed w/lemonade milk if we want to. But words have meanings. Almond/rice/? "milk" is a reasonable substitute. It doesn't mean it's bad. But it isn't milk. You don't have to milk an animal to get it. I've never heard of milking almonds.

Of course your friend is probably an avowed carnivore and making an argument from that mindset. He'd probably state that a meat substitute is garbage because it isn't real meat. It in fact isn't real meat, but some meat substitutes are better then the real things in some ways. You can't get people to admit to certain things because well they just don't want to.
 
singularity said:
Something being akin to a replica really has no bearing on whether or not it is vintage when you think about it. The design is still the same- and as long as the parts that make up the whole serve the same function exactly -then by all accounts it still is a vintage device. How something was done, in my opinion, is far more important than the exact set of parts that left a factory 40 years ago.

You wouldn't go to a car meet and try to tell a guy his '68 Mustang isn't a classic car anymore just because he had to replace most of the OEM parts to restore it. He'd call you crazy.
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Ok, thought about it, and that's insane. Vintage means of a certain age. If something is entirely reproduced in the modern era, it by definition cannot be vintage.

Cool nickname by the way.
 
VERAULT said:
Its funny 2 or 3 years ago i was turning down c64s as i had 8 already. Sin e then they shot up in price. I sold one a year ago selling anothet one in the next month or so. I dont get too many offers for people selling them anymore and when i do they laughably ask for $300 to 500 for an as is machine.
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I knew the day would come when C64s were no longer junk. I quit looking for them over a decade ago and traded one for a Xbox. The C64c with matching drive is nice to have along with the original.

For me anything on the upside of the value curve (after something is just ewaste and people start collecting it) could be classified as vintage.

Computers these days seem to be useful much longer then something from the 386/486 era (I guess Intel stagnating did that). I used to upgrade every couple of years back in the day and now I just use older gear I pickup for next to nothing or free.
 
The truth of the matter is vintage refers to wine. Vin, vino, etc. The actual definition of vintage is a season's yield of grapes or wine. So when referring to anything other than grapes or wine is a misuse of the word. I like term retro better myself.
 
Vintage has long been used to denote any number of things belonging to one or more time frames. Retro in the context of computers seems to indicate some sort of reproduction. A Maxi C64 is retro but not vintage. People can use words any way they choose. And there comes a point when the whole language is ****ed to hell.
 
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