It removes the fun of figuring things out by yourself and the learning how to learn things. Also the lower complexity these systems usually have vs what we use today.
I don’t see the appeal either, but perhaps the person using takes something else from their retrocomputing use.
Yes, I understand, as perhaps someone who has a museum and has to keep things working with very little resources, and I imagine there are many more reasons. Different people may have the same hobbies on the surface for different reasons and so on.
You couldn't be more off-base in that opinion. Now there's nothing with a ROM in it that can't be understood and brought back to life. Data formats, communication protocols, and command languages that were poorly documented or completely undocumented can now be reverse-engineered and put back to work, to say nothing of license keys that haven't been issued by the manufacturer for 20+ years.
I'm part of a group of collectors/users of HP and Tektronix test gear from the same eras that the retrocomputing fans are typically focused on, and LLM-guided ROM disassembly has already solved some longstanding (if admittedly obscure) problems in our community.
There are many ways you could make a principled argument in that direction and I would agree in lots of cases. But retro-computing is a varied field with lots of different interests. Many of those are simply enthusiast curiosity.
So I will say this. Back in the days of 80x25 terminals, I was adamant that larger screens made you more productive. I don't remember anything but outright derision and skepticism in this regard. The saying "the monitor is the computer" meant a lot to me. The limitations of the day were defining but as developers we always wanted the best technology and tools available.
Then so do emulators, flash drives instead of 1541's, etc. Nobody forces you to use generative models to get older hardware to do its thing, you're still free to try to get the actual hardware to run, free to build interfaces to get QIC drives connected to whatever you want them connected to, etc.
Personally, I just think that LLMs are an artificial line to draw based on current personal preference.
I'm not an AI maximalist, but I really can't see the issue with using it to preserve this hardware (especially into RTL for FPGA), if it's highly accurate.
These machines are dying in real time, and having cycle and operationally accurate emulation options is more important than the bad taste the Glorified Copymachine leaves in my mouth, to be honest.
Honestly, by quantity alone, I've seen more impressive and quality reverse-engineering and documentation work of these platforms done in the last year than i have in the last 20.
It removes the fun of figuring things out by yourself and the learning how to learn things. Also the lower complexity these systems usually have vs what we use today.
I don’t see the appeal either, but perhaps the person using takes something else from their retrocomputing use.
Some of us care a bit more about having historically relevant content be accessible. I care very little about the reverse engineering aspect.
Yes, I understand, as perhaps someone who has a museum and has to keep things working with very little resources, and I imagine there are many more reasons. Different people may have the same hobbies on the surface for different reasons and so on.
You couldn't be more off-base in that opinion. Now there's nothing with a ROM in it that can't be understood and brought back to life. Data formats, communication protocols, and command languages that were poorly documented or completely undocumented can now be reverse-engineered and put back to work, to say nothing of license keys that haven't been issued by the manufacturer for 20+ years.
I'm part of a group of collectors/users of HP and Tektronix test gear from the same eras that the retrocomputing fans are typically focused on, and LLM-guided ROM disassembly has already solved some longstanding (if admittedly obscure) problems in our community.
There are many ways you could make a principled argument in that direction and I would agree in lots of cases. But retro-computing is a varied field with lots of different interests. Many of those are simply enthusiast curiosity.
So I will say this. Back in the days of 80x25 terminals, I was adamant that larger screens made you more productive. I don't remember anything but outright derision and skepticism in this regard. The saying "the monitor is the computer" meant a lot to me. The limitations of the day were defining but as developers we always wanted the best technology and tools available.
Then so do emulators, flash drives instead of 1541's, etc. Nobody forces you to use generative models to get older hardware to do its thing, you're still free to try to get the actual hardware to run, free to build interfaces to get QIC drives connected to whatever you want them connected to, etc.
Are you trying to prove their personal preference wrong?
Personally, I just think that LLMs are an artificial line to draw based on current personal preference.
I'm not an AI maximalist, but I really can't see the issue with using it to preserve this hardware (especially into RTL for FPGA), if it's highly accurate.
These machines are dying in real time, and having cycle and operationally accurate emulation options is more important than the bad taste the Glorified Copymachine leaves in my mouth, to be honest.
Honestly, by quantity alone, I've seen more impressive and quality reverse-engineering and documentation work of these platforms done in the last year than i have in the last 20.
No, but the GGP certainly tried to do just that.
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