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a hypothetical question about computer life-span.

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I'm a screenwriter developing a sci-fi story and need to find out about the life-span of computers. Is it plausible that the ibook I'm writing on now (or another computer, used or unused) could be working a 150 years from now?

I'm posing this in a mac forum because were to search such information (and because I'm a happy mac user since the Apple Lisa).
 

eric


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i would venture to guess that an unused computer kept in a humidity and temperature controlled environment would have a decent chance of booting up barring any crazy electromagnetic mishaps.
i'm not sure about a monitor though. and of course the power supply would have to provide the right amount of juice and the data on it may be stored in formats that could be incompatable with any future tech.
 
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It is very very difficult to give even a rough estimate without knowing thing like how you maintain it, hardware inside(HDD, SuperDrive, etc), how often you use it. Even if you have all that information; usability also depends on software & hardware support in the long run. If you are not influenced by market trends and keep the system clean, you may be able to use it well over 10 years.
 
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Yes it's possible, with light use and being kept in favourable environment. Whether power sources in the future would be compatible though is another question. The battery would almost certainly be dead, used or unused, in 150 years...
 
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In theory is should still work if there was the right power sources around still to use it. But 2 questions pop up.

Would there be anyone still able to use the then ancient technology.

And if any part of it broke down, consider it useless as I doubt parts would be made for it anymore.

So in theory yes. But in practice maybe if under the right conditions.

********************

Well if you consider a robot to be a computer, there is always the story of the Bicentennial Man. I think that's the title of the movie. It had Robin Williams in it. It lasted a long time. So under that guise it's totally plausible given the right technology which no one can predict that far in advance.
 

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I've got a 486 laptop that still boots up to Windows 3.1 - it's 15 years old. The NiCd battery is not OK though. It needs to run off mains power.

I've got a Commodore 64 that still works - it's 24 years old.
On the other hand, I don't think UNIVAC works anymore.:Smirk:

To extrapolate an order of magnitude is quite a stretch, but it could happen. I don't expect my 486 to be able to run Windows MMCL SP2. ;)

EDIT: now I'm wondering about the implications of 64-bit (128-bit?) environments on this question.
 

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i'm guessing, since there is no response from the o.p. that he's just looking to see that if in the future if someone found a computer. could you power it up and check the data on it, maybe even use the apps.

not necessarily that it would run that long, or that it would be compatable.
 
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Mechanically speaking, I think it could essentially last forever, assuming it was stored properly.

There would undoubtedly be complications. A laptop's batteries would almost certainly lose their ability to hold a charge.

And there are "Year 2000" type issues. 2000 itself is not an issue, but lots of software still makes assumptions around dates, and there is the Year 2038 problem even on modern Macs (at least, 32-bit ones; possibly others.)
 
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Using a (signed) 64-bit value introduces a new wraparound date in about 290 billion years.

I don't think we need to worry about that one too much... :D
 
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Until we get to the point where computers have no moving parts, I don't see how they could last 150 years unless they weren't being used.
 

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