[In a message on Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:06:46 PDT, "Vadim Tkachenko" wrote:] >Steve Lancaster wrote: > >>Do you even HAVE the same machines you had 10 years ago? >> >> >Generally speaking, yes. My relay box is the first computer I've owned - >it's a Pentium 233MMX with 64M RAM. Very useful, and more than enough >for the task - mail relay, POP/IMAP server, Squid cache, Web server, DNS >server, limited edition file server, etc. Made somewhere in 1997. My >main workstation is PIII 550MHz 640M RAM, made in 1999. Gee, I'm sorry!.. :-) (and 1999 isn't 10 years ago.. yet...) "My" first machine was a PDP-8.. followed by an 8008.. and all of those are LONG gone. Yes, there are a few antiques out there.. still running... and yes, I pitched PILES of punched paper tape with stuff folks might like to have.. like the old 2 pass assembler for a PDP-8... but, life is too short to haul that sort of baggage around. > >The equipment I'm collecting the data on has a usable lifetime of at >least 20, often in excess of 30 years. And often control systems for AC systems are replaced before things like compressors and fan coil units are.. and very often, the old systems aren't compatible with the new ones. They are often replaced because the new systems offer enough energy savings or labor savings to pay for the replacement. If you really think about it.. once a building has been characterized in terms of it's heat flow most of the old data could be re-created if you went to the trouble to model it properly. Now.. there are some things you might catch.. like say a cooling tower scaling up... but this can also be measured "on the spot" once you know what the tower's capacity was in it's initial "as built" condition. Sure, there is lots of stuff out there that can be "mined" for useful information.... BUT.. there is a lot of stuff that's being saved with no thought to "why save it?" The stuff you "saved" from 20 years ago.. It's likely on old 8" floppies.. Have you got a reader for them any more? Can you still read the data? If you are lucky, it's on old circular chart recorders which you can still read with the Mark I eyeball. (If you arn't it's on "thermal paper" which has all turned to a uniform shade of tan by now! :-) ) > >There is one ultimate reason to keep the boatload of old data - pattern >analysis. Whereas the operating conditions (and machinery related to it) >change, patterns don't. And at any given moment of time you may or may >not be smart enough to apply yet another pattern analysis algorithm to >the data you have and see critical correlations you didn't see before. Well.. maybe... but, for the most part our "initial conditions" have changed so much from year to year that the "pattern" is swamped by the "changes". We just added another 20 tons of AC to our computer room... (Based on heat load calculations and some short term temp measurements, confirming the calculations.) Keeping data from the "olden days" when we had a bunch of VAX's doesn't bear much resemblance to the racks of 1u stuff we have now.. and probably won't bear much resemblance to what we will have in the next 10 years. It looks like we will consolidate our computer room with another one in the next year or so... because we've got so much more compute power in such small packages that we can do what we used to do... and more... in less physical space. All that being said.. having 6 months worth of detail data, and a couple of years worth of re-sampled long term data is useful... and I'm grateful to Paul and the other developers of OWFS.. and various other 1 wire products for their efforts. There is stuff worth keeping.. but I'm just advocating for a "sane" retention policy that matches what you will really use. >Oh, and while I am at it, who needs a computer with more than 640K RAM >in it? > If you need one like this, let me know.. I've got one in my garage gathering dust.. Steve - who's been drowning in "data" for way too long! :-) ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7477&alloc_id=16492&op=click _______________________________________________ Owfs-developers mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/owfs-developers
