In my view, most electronics won't last. The aesthetic is fun, but if we're being realistic, I feel we need to go back to treating computing as a human activity, rather than one influenced by machines.

It's easy, if not desirable, to build things that look like foundations in isolation. But when you strip out something as basic as electrical or mechanical power, design gets.. complicated.

Programming languages, computing stacks, should be able to be run on humans.

I think the realization you're approaching here is that collapse computing, as currently practiced, is largely cyberpunk LARPing.

You will have a lot of trouble manufacturing any sort of nontrivial IC, including but not limited to a CPU, in the apocalypse. If your design includes any such component and it's not readily salvageable from the devices normal people are surrounded by, you've already failed.

An FPGA is decidedly nontrivial and also needs an existing, working, relatively modern computer to program it, so that's worse.

Writing an OS for simple Z80 computers sounds like a fun project, but branding it "CollapseOS" is a bit silly because... where are you expecting to find the components to build a simple Z80 computer? If you're salvaging from Game Boys and TI calculators, why not just write an OS for those? The average person in that scenario will have a lot less trouble actually installing and using the thing in practice.

You know what's easy to find in the apocalypse? Existing working computers. Refurbishing them and building methods of powering them is *significantly* more doable without factories. But building an entirely new computer sounds a lot cooler to most people.

I've built a printer from scratch, but it's an electromechanical contraption not directly related to computery things and not exactly a convenient form-factor.
(though watch this space, I still have loads of ink and I've been Having Bad Ideas for future projects after watching too many teleprinter videos... 😳)

oldbytes.space/@zxguesser/1125…

ZXGuesser (@zxguesser@oldbytes.space)

Attached: 1 video I'd like to say it worked first time, but then I'd have no explanation for staying up until 4AM soldering...

^{OldBytes Space - Mastodon}

There’s hobbyist core memory.

The kind of person who makes a custom CPU design out of discrete transistors or valves or relays also often makes a small amount of RAM with flip-flops or individual transistors. It’s definitely hard to scale up.

Open mechanical stuff is indeed really rare, with the notable exceptions of rapid prototypers and that electron microscope from a while ago.

I wonder if anyone's tried replicating the memory used by two of the computers in the Voyager spacecraft. They each have three computers, two with some kind of wire memory and one with a more modern kind.

All the problems the Voyagers have had is with the more modern memory. The wire memory is still working perfectly afaik.