A Recent History of Writing And Drawing

Hardly any field of technology is developing at a faster pace than computer technology. Equipment regarded as a novelty five years ago is found on the scrapheap today. Twenty years old computers are often not even recognized as such by many people. If only for the sake of industrial archeology, it is important that representative examples of the various generations of computers be conserved. However such a computer collection can also have practical applications: an important example is recovering data from outdated media.

The collection is not 'frozen'. While the oldest electronic computer in the collection is the IBM Model 604 Electronic Calculator from 1948, our most recent computers are barely five years old. Tools from the pre-computer era like mechanical calculators, slide rules and books of tables are also included in the collection.

In principle, machines that are accepted for our collection are complete and operable. This implies the presence of documentation, system- and other software and documentation.

There are many points in favour of the idea to keep the collected machines in this condition 'indefinitely'. First, for most people working machines are more interesting than lifeless contraptions, however interesting these may be from the point of view of their size, design or just sentimental value. Second, regularly running a computer (including its mechanical parts and peripherals) is beneficial for its condition. And third, the computers can be used for useful things, like retrieving information stored on machine-specific media, verifying emulators, and more. Unfortunately, like living beings, computers are subject to illness and death, however carefully they may be treated.

Here is a list our top-dozen causes of trouble, in arbitrary order:

- malfunctioning printed circuit boards (without us knowing which chip is failing);
- electrolytic capacitors having lost capacity or exploding (!);
- information loss of battery-backed-up memory cards and eproms;
- ageing of rubber capstans and rollers in card readers and tape drives;
- dried-up lubricants, e.g. in teletypewriters and mechanical calculators;
- desintegrating plastics, e.g. in cable sleeves and air filter units;
- rust formation and other types of corrosion;
- dirty and damaged contact fingers or pins in connectors;
- cut-through or missing cables;
- defective crt's and associated high-voltage power supplies;
- lack of supplies for printer ribbons and similar expendables;
- bad spots in magnetic media.

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