A few thoughts on modern systems survivability - 10/11/11 11:14 AM
Hi,
As one might assume by my handle, I am into Teletype machines. Most who get into TTY started out as phone collectors. I actually came into phone collecting long after I was interested in and actively collecting/using TTY machines. Though I am admittedly quite ignorant of telephone technology, I feel quite comfortable being up to my elbows in a TTY. Indeed, it was a master TTY engineer/guru who gave me my first 1A2 KTU when I visited him. It was sitting in his junk box, and sat in my garage for three years before I looked at it. Now it serves as my "main telephone system" in my house.
I belong to a Teletype mail server called Greenkeys, where several days ago, there was a thread started about a computer printer tech who made a snide comment about "all of that crappy old stuff" when he was on a service call to a TTY museum in CA. The museum owner is quite involved in the TTY world, and he started the thread. Below is my response (one of many, but I only posted my own response.)
Enjoy. Also, as always, if this does not belong here, please move to the appropriate place or delete.
Thank you,
Joe
Here is my own thoughts...
I do not trust solid state anything. Be they lamp dimmers to space shuttle computers. Silicon is simply too fragile and vulnerable to EMP and ionizing radiation.
I love the old TTY machines, because I love mechanical things. I love old switchboards, because it represents (to me) a time when there was an actual human being who could respond to you if you needed something. That human being in a small town would often know you personally, and if you were in need of assistance, she (or rarely he) would move heaven and earth to get that help to you. Of course, the flip side, is that you never made a call after her bedtime unless it was an emergency.
That said, I am someone who worries a lot more than I should about the survivability of our society. We have built not a house but a skyscraper of cards on non-hardened, packet switched non-sense and I-pods. One medium solar flare directed our way and crash goes the comms. Then the power grid (controlled by the silicon comms). Then the water. Then the transport systems. Then there is disease because the sanitary sewer systems no longer work. There is famine, because the average person has two days worth of food, and the grocery stores have three days worth. Then the winter comes, and people freeze to death because there is no heat, and very few people know how to survive in the cold. Horses will suddenly become quite valuable (for those who know how to care and use them), as will a wood lot.
Now if we as a society did not give in to the computer geeks of the seventies and eighties, (Yeah, the now departed and overly lionized Steve Jobs; as well as Steve Wozniac, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates) and demanded that our comms remained direct switched, tube based and direct wired (or microwave linked via hardened longlines stations), we would not be in this situation.
I can now hear the screams of protest already. 'How will I download the next episode of Sex in the City' with that old crappy stuff? Well, my answer is that 'Sex in the City' is not a vital commodity for the survival of society. Being able to call the EMS is. Being able to turn on the lights is. If you want 'Sex in the City' via digital packet distribution, fine, build an internet. Just do it on a seperate system, don't connect our missle defense network to it, (or anything else of import for that matter) and all will be fine. Oh, and by the way, let those who use the packet switched system pay for it... don't subsidize it.
I can make a reasonable bet that if our world is blasted by the sun or (God forbid) a direct hit from a nearby gamma ray burst, that my old hollow state radios, TUs, TTYs, 1A2 systems, and "BELL SYSTEM NOT FOR SALE" telephones will still work. I will also bet my next month's salary that your supper dupper I-phone 4S that cost 500.00 USD will be nothing more than a desk paper weight.
And that nasty computer printer tech with his rude comments about that "crappy old stuff"? He will be too busy looking for his next meal to even think about what he said.
Just my two yen worth.
Joe Herdler
As one might assume by my handle, I am into Teletype machines. Most who get into TTY started out as phone collectors. I actually came into phone collecting long after I was interested in and actively collecting/using TTY machines. Though I am admittedly quite ignorant of telephone technology, I feel quite comfortable being up to my elbows in a TTY. Indeed, it was a master TTY engineer/guru who gave me my first 1A2 KTU when I visited him. It was sitting in his junk box, and sat in my garage for three years before I looked at it. Now it serves as my "main telephone system" in my house.
I belong to a Teletype mail server called Greenkeys, where several days ago, there was a thread started about a computer printer tech who made a snide comment about "all of that crappy old stuff" when he was on a service call to a TTY museum in CA. The museum owner is quite involved in the TTY world, and he started the thread. Below is my response (one of many, but I only posted my own response.)
Enjoy. Also, as always, if this does not belong here, please move to the appropriate place or delete.
Thank you,
Joe
Here is my own thoughts...
I do not trust solid state anything. Be they lamp dimmers to space shuttle computers. Silicon is simply too fragile and vulnerable to EMP and ionizing radiation.
I love the old TTY machines, because I love mechanical things. I love old switchboards, because it represents (to me) a time when there was an actual human being who could respond to you if you needed something. That human being in a small town would often know you personally, and if you were in need of assistance, she (or rarely he) would move heaven and earth to get that help to you. Of course, the flip side, is that you never made a call after her bedtime unless it was an emergency.
That said, I am someone who worries a lot more than I should about the survivability of our society. We have built not a house but a skyscraper of cards on non-hardened, packet switched non-sense and I-pods. One medium solar flare directed our way and crash goes the comms. Then the power grid (controlled by the silicon comms). Then the water. Then the transport systems. Then there is disease because the sanitary sewer systems no longer work. There is famine, because the average person has two days worth of food, and the grocery stores have three days worth. Then the winter comes, and people freeze to death because there is no heat, and very few people know how to survive in the cold. Horses will suddenly become quite valuable (for those who know how to care and use them), as will a wood lot.
Now if we as a society did not give in to the computer geeks of the seventies and eighties, (Yeah, the now departed and overly lionized Steve Jobs; as well as Steve Wozniac, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates) and demanded that our comms remained direct switched, tube based and direct wired (or microwave linked via hardened longlines stations), we would not be in this situation.
I can now hear the screams of protest already. 'How will I download the next episode of Sex in the City' with that old crappy stuff? Well, my answer is that 'Sex in the City' is not a vital commodity for the survival of society. Being able to call the EMS is. Being able to turn on the lights is. If you want 'Sex in the City' via digital packet distribution, fine, build an internet. Just do it on a seperate system, don't connect our missle defense network to it, (or anything else of import for that matter) and all will be fine. Oh, and by the way, let those who use the packet switched system pay for it... don't subsidize it.
I can make a reasonable bet that if our world is blasted by the sun or (God forbid) a direct hit from a nearby gamma ray burst, that my old hollow state radios, TUs, TTYs, 1A2 systems, and "BELL SYSTEM NOT FOR SALE" telephones will still work. I will also bet my next month's salary that your supper dupper I-phone 4S that cost 500.00 USD will be nothing more than a desk paper weight.
And that nasty computer printer tech with his rude comments about that "crappy old stuff"? He will be too busy looking for his next meal to even think about what he said.
Just my two yen worth.
Joe Herdler