Re:Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox”: The Percolation Theory Hypothesis
by lisper on Friday December 25, 2020 @12:30PM
(#25537738)
But all that is just because computers are not designed for longevity, they are designed for capability. We could easily design them for longevity if we wanted to: lower the clock speed so that passive cooling is all that's needed. Make all the PC traces five times fatter than they need to be. Use non-electrolytic capacitors. The resulting computer would be big and slow but it would last forever.
In fact, it would not surprise me a bit if you could run a Raspberry Pi Zero for 100 years.
Still, I was probably too ambitious when I said "computer". I was thinking more that we can't make a PC or server-style computer that would actually last 100 years, while in regular operation.
Also, 1980s calculators have much, much fewer moving parts than today's computers. They don't have any kind of active cooling, they don't go through rapid heating and cooling cycles, they probably have three orders of magnitude less electrical components than a modern PC.
For me at least, all of the PCs I have had so far have had a few electrical components giving out after at most 10 years (usually some condensers leaked).