How do 40 year old electronics still function?
>>10870578electricity. You plug them to a power outlet and flick the switch.
>>10870578Why would they not function? The materials they're made of will outlast all of us. The capacitors last for several decades, but are easily fixed if the device happened to use a cheap or bad batch. The only reason they wouldn't work today is if they weren't taken care of or suffered from corrosion. Even the ones that are "broken" can usually be repaired easily, it's just that they're usually not repaired because it's easier to just find a working unit.
>>10870578Things used to be built to last before tech companies and other manufacturers realized they can make more money using cheap parts shoddily put together so consumers will inevitably buy the new version once the version they own breaks down
How do 40 year old electronics still funct-
>>108705781980s electronics were just built different
less precise manufacturing is essentially more failure resistantno counter productive e-waste producing ROHS bullshit like lead free solder, they made this shit out of poison because it wasn't supposed to be thrown out so it doesn't matterthrough-hole components being a billion times more robust than s*rface mount componentsnot running hot enough to need active cooling or even cooling at all in some cases so it's not cooking itself just from being turned on
>>10870691I just tried this on my 40 year old famicom, and it worked ! What a time to be alive.
>>10870710Unironically this. Manufacturing wasn't all outsourced to China until the late 90s which is when all electronics suddenly went to shit.
>>10870713>not running hot enough to need active cooling or even cooling at all
ha ha oh my no modern electronics are way better>IC fabrication and design is better understood nowadays>power supplies are better and have proper cutoffs and thermal governors>stuff doesn't use hot running NMOS chips nowadays>chips have clamp diodes so they don't get damaged from static electricity as easily
The chips themselves have no moving parts, and everything else can be replaced with off-the-shelf or third-party parts for the most part (capacitors, batteries, fans, disc drives). Replacing these can sometimes make the console better than it was on release, especially ODEs which allow you to use burned discs or even replace it entire with SD cards with all games preserved in perfect quality on them.
>>10870578No moving parts is like a 20x lifespan multiplier
>>10870729>*dies anyways*NO REFUNDS
>>10870720there were a few exceptions
>>10870729*lead-free solder cracks**single microscopic smd component dies and takes the entire device with it**non-removable battery starts to swell**OS automatically updates to be slower than it was before*
you ought to ask some Commodore boomers about how "reliable" chips were back then
Soul and nintendium
>>10870578there wasn't a competency crisis + there weren't malicious agents trying to engineer planned obsolescence in all products
i know, right?
>>10870757Retro computers tend to suffer a lot more than consoles because tards would open them up, zap stuff with static electricity, do ill-conceived hardware mods etc.
>>10870767>still posting the same one pic year after yearBased auster
>>10870767Man we've established that the first run SNES with the separate sound board had hardware faults. We know. Just avoid those fucking things and you'll be ok.
>>10870720Some ZX Spectrum ULAs also got molten hot.
>>10870578ICs are solid state components and could theoretically last hundreds of years (unless they're Commodore ones). Chip data sheets don't list any specific lifespan on them unlike for things such as electrolytic caps (ceramic caps are also solid state and have no definite lifespan).
>>10870578eventually will all retro consoles stop working?
>>10870827yes even now cosmic radiation is wearing away at their subatomic structure soon nothing will be left but massless photons scattered across an ever expanding void
>>10870729yet old shit still worksalso a company can't force an update on my older system if i don't want it
>>10870854>just never connect to the internet bro
>>10870854>yet old shit still worksThen again...
>>10870869>not so fast, out of millions of units produced I did a google search and found a handful of cherry picked examples of broken computers that were clearly abused and neglected for decades!
>>10870869that's Commodore, kek. also that was really early when the electronics industry was still in pull-ups. i agree PETs always manage to fail in ways you never imagined possible.
>>10870720This was a known issue when they were new. There is a Mattel internal document that reported the main ICs getting to like 90C.
>>10870706Just replace the belt bro
>>10870578God hasn't updated electricity much in the last 40 years.
all snes's dead within 5 years (not just early models) most all retro console dead in the next 10 due to various failing chips and leked caps melting the insidessoon it will be impossible to play any retro game on original hardwareinstall a fucking emulator already boomer retards
>>10870578unlike a lot of more recent electronics, they don't have a lot of liquid in them
>>10871005lmao
>>10870578If something's still working after 30+ years it's probably not going to fail; if it did it would have shit itself early on.
>>10871043anon they only degrade with time they don't regenerate from their accumulated damage
>>10871046>>10871043Is it that hard to not spill Coke in your consoles? Seriously.
>>10870992>"Just replace the belt!">still doesn't work
>>10871246low iq understanding of electronic components
>>10871256spilling drinks in electronics does tend to be bad for them, no?
>>10870720>>10870749>there were a few exceptionsThe Bally Astrocade was basically the 70s version of rrod Xbox, with overheating and sensitive irreplaceable custom chips being cooked. Even contemporary reviews pointed out you needed to keep the Bally off the carpet because of the heat. These days owners do stuff like add heat sinks and fan mods. 2600, otoh, is rock solid and will probably be the last rom console working after all others have failed.
>>10870757Commodore were kind of a unique case because they had very outdated chip fab with mid-1970s equipment.
>>10871281>2600, otoh, is rock solid and will probably be the last rom console working after all others have failed.Pretty much the only thing that kills those is components being zapped from static electricity when you touch the controller ports. On the six switchers it's not too bad because you'll just zap the hex buffer which is a stock component you can get anywhere but on four switchers the TIA gets zapped.
>>10871281I agree the Astrocade and Intellivision had nuclear hot chips because they were trying to push the limits of technology at the time while the 2600 had a much simpler design.>Even contemporary reviews pointed out you needed to keep the Bally off the carpet because of the heat.That was also back when shag carpeting was common.
>>10871297Astrocade basically had a scaled down version of the same hardware Bally used in arcade games like Wizard of Wor and Gorf, so it was definitely pushing the envelope and amazing considering when it came out in 1977. https://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=595
Why do all of my 30 year old electronics keep breaking on me?!
>>10870786I believe the overheating ULAs were only in early production Spectrums from the first year and a half and they did die shrink on them by mid-1983.
>>10870767>>10870776Like with the Astrocade this problem was known early on which was why they had revised SNES chipset starting with GPM units. Generally if something has a design fault like that it will become apparent pretty quickly (those are called infant mortality failures); if it's still working 30 years later you can assume it will probably work in another 30 years.It's kind of like my neighbor's lawn care guy and his 70s-80s Ford pickups. Obviously those have survived all this time and are still being driven around while all the shitty vehicles from that era disappeared a long time ago.
>>10870878IBM PCs/XTs seem to be quite reliable; only caps and occasionally RAM chips seems to fail in those. I agree many upstart computer mfgrs like Commodore were not as good or experienced at building a computer as IBM was.
>>10870702This. As a retarded child I let my parents throw out my original nes when it started having issues reading carts and they got me a new one. When we got internet and I discovered what a simple fix it was, it caused me great remorse and a burning fire ti hoarde and start repairing shit. It's still gonna haunt me on my deathbed though...
>>10871281>>10870720Part of the problem with the Astrocade and Intellivision was the shitty FCC mandated RF shield which you can just remove but it helped trap heat inside. I don't think that was an issue with PAL models where there was no requirement to have that thing.
>>10871005Betcha these systems will outlive whatever hard drive you have your emus on.
>>10870861Yes.
>>10870827Long after you stop working.
>>10870729Didn't NEC have to throw out a bunch of Dreamcast GPUs because of the wafers being ruined in a chemical spill at the plant?
>>10871674>Didn't NEC have to throw out a bunch of Dreamcast GPUs because of the wafers being ruined in a chemical spill at the plant?the fuck are you talking about?
>>10871714He means the very first run of Japanese DCs they did in 1998. NEC ruined a bunch of the PowerVR2s in an accident at the fab and they had to be discarded so the consoles were very scarce for a few months.
>>10871723source?
>>10871674If that was Commodore they would have just stuck the defective chips in the things anyway to meet shipping quotas.
>>10871723>>10871734this, can't find any source for it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast#LaunchIt's mentioned right in the fucking Wikipedia page.
>>10871746what the fuck are you talking about, it has nothing about this supposed accident
>>10870869A while back there was an anon with a chicklet key PET and his had about three of the original Synertek 2114 RAMs replaced with TI chips. Synertek were an early chip manufacturer that kind of sucked and went out of business by the mid-80s. They had a lot of the same issues with primitive fab equipment and low yields with high rates of wafer contamination.
>>10871746Just looked through the citations and it doesn't say shit about a chemical spill. One of them wasn't even archived properly. The NintendoLife article just says this.
>>10871771that was like when Commodore first started using the 3.5 um process and they were really bad at it so they had tons of faulty PLAs and Plus/4 CPUs.
>>10871005I've seen posts like this for over 15 years now, still waiting. Two more weeks!
>>10870717China isn't the reason things are made terribly. it's the foreign business dorks that tell the Chinese manufacturers what to do. To blame someone doing what they were told to do is retarded considering even nice things are made in China.
>>10871936>he doesn't know
>>10871950Know what that you're a retard that blames China for American and Japanese business decisions? I'm pretty sure I know that.
>>10871961trying to do shit as cheaply as possible is literally part of chinese culture retard
>>10871972that's American culture retard.
>>10870578Back then electronics weren't actually built to break down after 2-3 years to sell you next product(tm).
I've never seen an Amiga that died outside of user stupidity. Say what you like about 8-bit Commodore hardware but Amigas are extremely dependable outside some big box models with shitty capacitors.
My atari xegs works, but it has a hard time working with the cartridgesNES and my N64 have some audio problem, probably the caps
>>10871985>Back then electronics weren't actually built to break down after 2-3 years to sell you next product(tm).That's always been Bil Herd's excuse for Commodore's shit Q/C.>well we didn't intend the stuff to last more than 3 years you guys are being too hard on me
>>10870578With new caps and if it's a ps3 reballing
>>10871983cool it with the anti-semitic remarks
>>10870704>Things used to be built to last before tech companies and other manufacturers realized they can make more money using cheap parts shoddily put together so consumers will inevitably buy the new version once the version they own breaks downAh yes, lets completely ignore the original Commodore 64 power supplies that can eventually fry your system
Ha. My nintendo still works but the games for it are half broken. Only some work still. I tried cleaning 1 and it was still broke. I'll the other others someday maybe
>>10873016You're comparing Japanese-quality standards to Amerishart crap pumped out to make a quick buck, they are not the same.
>>10873092>Japanese-quality standards lollmao
>>10870776depend I've got a 1st gen japanes snes and its fine but I've got parts ones that are busted>>10870805commodore and intellivision are big ones for the chips. You then have game gear for the capacitors.>>10871005if you replace a chip with fpga I still think its not far off original hardware. Better than nothing at least.>>10871292I think I've zapped stuff through the video connector, one day working fine and later video glitches. Had it happen to a master system and megadrive where half the tiles are corrupted.>>10871985Growing up most electronic things we brought would break down between about 5 to 10 years. Parents and relatives usually had issues with VCR's, washing machines where the mechanics were ok but the electronics were messed up. When I was a kid I got interested in those flip clock radios I would see in movies, the couple I got at garage sales never worked right with keeping time. Cheap radios would break down, cassette or record players would get screwed. Toy electronic talking robot and rc cars broke easily. Main thing that never broke was the phones which would get replace because they didn't on the new systems.>>10871292For the 2600 I plugged in the TIA chip in the wrong way then turned it on, once I put back it worked fine>>10870578I think the main difference is because they make millions they are able to correct any major issues as they find them so by the time you get to a late nes, sms or atari most of chips have been consolidated and there is not much to go wrong.Most consoles I have heard some chips go bad even if rare but I have never heard of an N64 going bad on the motherboard.
I wonder why mass repliers think anyone is going to give them (You)s?
This is why emulation is important. One day, all your retro consoles will die. Your console's will deteriorate so far, that they would no longer be repairable, and there will be no replacement chips, or functioning consoles left. That's where emulation comes in.
>>10871936go to be xi
>>10873352Are you saying more energy should be spent trying to get emulation up to snuff than discovering ways to preserve older platforms physically?
>>10873375I'm saying you shouldn't disregard emulation because you can repair consoles. Yes, you should absolutely repair them while you can, but it's also important to get emulation 100% for preservation's sake, no matter how much you look down on it.
>>10873375Also don't give that anon (You)s. You might report it for GR6 though.
>>10871005They said VHS was going to stop working after the advent of DVD and yet...
>>10873352>one dayThat day will be after we're all dead, climate controlled metal and silicon lasts much longer than human life.
>>10871392Confess to a priest and he will absolve you
>>10870805>unless they're Commodore onesthe problems with those are typically thermal issues due to their backward-ass 5 um process resulting in huge, heat radiating chip dies.
>>10870691Doesn't that kind of work both ways, though? Electricity powers things but it also deteriorates them and becomes more harmful with age.
>>10870578Old electronics don't eat tidepods, take selfies leaning over cliff, etc Their lifespan will be many times that of yours.
>>10870861Unironically. I use the Internet to banter and shitpost, not to connect consoles to.
>>10870702I have a chinese bootleg famicom from the 90s that doesn't work anymore. I think one of the roms that stores all the built in games is dead. The entire thing has extremely poor build quality so I imagine the roms are probably really shoddily made too.
>>10873352That and FPGA development.
>>10870578Shit use to be built better
>>10875780>everyonejust has to be the useful 10% of the population that carries everyone else desu
>>10875781>despite making up only 10% of the population
>>10875780Simple as.
>>10870578The same way 40 year old people do. They're damaged enough that you can see it on the surface, but not damaged enough to stop them chugging. And the retrobright and botox won't keep them pretty forever.
Manufacturing wasn't given to the lowest bidder.
>>10873352The more realistic scenario is we get to the point that every chip is documented so well and manufacturing becomes so widely available that you could just order new replacements for every important chip or part necessary from a chink website or even build new hardware from scratch via this process. It's all just electrical components anyway in the end and im sure most 30 years ago never expected we would have things like 3D printers allowing someone to build plastic molds using a computer system in their own private use. Emulation is good, but it wont stop nerds from tinkering with electronics. There are still geezers 80+ that run old tv(50s and 60s) and radio repair services as hobbies.We will likely all be long dead by the time you couldn't scrape together a working nes from original parts, but the dedicated wont let them die regardless if there is a means.
>>10870578I have a 27" Sony Trinitron ProFeel CRT TV with RGB-Scart input from 1989 that still works perfectly. I wouldn't be surprised if it lasts another 35-years.
>>10871771Yeah, all I could dig up was>Dreamcast got off to a rocky start when it debuted in Japan on Nov. 27, 1998. Because of a graphics-chip shortage, Sega was unable to ship as many consoles as originally planned. By the time the manufacturing snafu was solved, interest in Dreamcast had dissolved, and it took Sega more than a year to sell one million Dreamcasts in Japan.at https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20010204&slug=ptsega04Not saying it didn't happen but I'm not sure it happened the way the posts we're discussing are saying it did.
https://www.theregister.com/1998/11/04/nec_admits_it_delayed_sega/Really all evidence I can find points to NEC just being unable to manufacture the PowerVR2 to Sega's specifications and needs in time for the 1998 launch at the numbers they needed to fulfill early prospects. It doesn't seem to come down to an unplanned incident at the factory.
>>10871516Speaking of, what was it with the FCC and their extremely strict RF leakage requirements? Stuff sold in yuroland had some RF shielding, but not to the autistic extent of FCC demands. I haven't yet read any truly solid explanation, which leads me to believe it was some sort of military-derived requirement, which might still be classified.
>>10878219no it was just government retard being retards as usual. the initial RF standard from 1979 was stricter but quickly relaxed in a few years.
>>10873893>Electricity powers things but it also deteriorates themNo.
>>10878048There's very little that's realistic about your imagined scenario. I first saw a 3D printer well over 30 years ago, and immediately realized it would be developed into a consumer product. So you're wrong on that part, and also very wrong to equate it with producing ICs. Let's not dwell on the part where the technology you say will someday exist has for years and is widely used. It's inherent more complex than 3D printing plastic because it's not "just electrical components anyway in the end". And it has nowhere near the potential to become a mainstream consumer product/service like 3D printing. Everyone needs physical "things". Very few people need replacement ICs for old toys.I wish I shared your optimism on systems outliving people. Unless you're factoring in tidepods? The reality is that an alarming number of mentally disturbed children, some as old as early 40's, are obsessed with "fixing" (breaking) their old toys, and their numbers are only increasing. If subject only to the ravages of time, consoles would last for several decades. But millions of dunning kreugers could wipe them all out in a fraction of that time. This is why it's imperative that all these things are well documented now. Also why it's imperative that we legalize abortion up to the 130th trimester.
>>10878483Obviously there wont be people home making ICs(maybe not), but you really think turbo autists aren't and haven't already fully torn down key chips or have copies of how they were made that a modern or near future production method couldn't replicate how they were originally designed or a 99.99% approximation? Outside of custom chips that would need documentation, the majority of components in any vintage electronic device is off the shelf parts. Even many chink clone systems like nes on a chip stuff was already damn near close to original quality anyway decades ago. I just dont see how as technology advances and fabrication processes become more accessible to smaller businesses, replication of original components from 30+ years ago would be impossible, beyond sanctions like with CRTs being extremely red taped to produce or a complete loss of every available historical resource regarding said components.Human autism has done plenty of impossible or absurdly niche solutions for things.
>>10879864>there wont be people home making ICshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrEC2LGGXn0
>>10871936>uppity Chang here
>>10870578Its just a solid state box with silicon chips in it. No moving parts that could more easily fail. Should last a while. Optical drive consoles and consoles with hard drives will die first, but those parts can be replaced.
>>10879875well I guess he can DIY an IC from 1972 with like 300 transistors but that's not terribly useful here
>>10871000where the fuck do you think your power comes from you dumb trailer park fucktarddo not post anymore
>>10879864>Obviously there wont be people home making ICsOh dear! What will happen to the people who are doing it now? I hope they'll be OK.>I just dont see how as technology advances and fabrication processes become more accessible to smaller businesses, replication of original components from 30+ years ago would be impossibleThere could be a catastrophic event and all that technology that's existed for years and is used every day could be destroyed, along with all the documentation, and everyone who knows how to reproduce it. lmfao. Your fan fiction takes place in an alternate reality where this doesn't already exist.>>10879904>well I guessWell that's the best you could possibly do, isn't it. It's not like you could do some simple math and work out accurate numbers.>that's not terribly useful hereTo be sure. But elsewhere it is.
>>10873352Just the way Nintendo likes itSo they can sell you mini consoles and subscription based emulators from their virtual store
>>10870578No moving parts and they don’t produce a ton of heat.Things obviously can go wrong with them, but most people’s old cartridge consoles work as great as the day they bought them for this reason.
>>10880920>and they don’t produce a ton of heatUnless Commodore or Intellivision, but I digress.
>>10873893>he doesn't use the power converter and slowly fries it
are there any systems which would objectively work forever without repairs?
>>10882682ones that are entirely analog, barely a system at that point though
>>10882682Any that violate multiple laws of physics can easily do it.>>10882691The age rule isn't a law of physics, but at least you got the breaking the rules part right.
>>10870702Yeah older larger mobos and chips are just made of sturdier stuff. Better quality and also larger builds, the microchips were nothing close to the tiny tiny tiny shit we have today. That's a huge part of the fragility of more modern electronics.
>>10871046Electrolytic capacitors literally do regenerate from accumulated damage, but only while they're powered on. This is why you shouldn't run big capacitors immediately at full voltage after they've been left unused for a very long time, and instead gradually increase the voltage ("reforming"). They also have limited capacity to regenerate and will eventually fail anyway.
>>10880898What are you even arguing for or against? It's very confusing.
>>10883732Didn't that apply more to old-fashioned oil paper caps than modern water-based ones?
>>10870578not being hella chinese helps
>>10885854Believe it or not, not everything has to be an argument. You'd have to be mentally ill to argue with clueless kiddos on a gook toon image board. It's about as sane as going to the zoo to see monkeys throw shit and masturbate, but instead of laughing and throwing peanuts at them you join in.
>>10870578Very poorly.
>>10875781I'm guessing you're part of that 10%, what a special boy, running the world from your neckbeard nest.
>>10885861AFAIK it applies to all liquid electrolytic capacitors (not the solid ones, but those last a long time anyway).
>>10870702>Why would they not function?Tell that to my PS3 and 360 that couldn't even last until the end of their generation. And PS4 got a stick drift after a year. Surprising how many gen 3-6 consoles are still in top condition
>>10870578People take good care of their shit.
