[wplug] OT: Down Memory Lane

Christopher DeMarco cmd at alephant.net
Sat Oct 15 08:23:14 EDT 2005


On Sun, Oct 16, 2005 at 06:35:49AM -0400, Zach wrote:

> Why is it that stuff built 20-25 years ago is still running fine
> without maintenance and with all original parts yet so often we see
> a new PC system or component (video card, mobo) die within a few
> years or even months from purchase date!? Maybe we really are buying
> more for less. We get more processing, graphics, etc.. but their
> lifetime is less perhaps.

1.  The stuff you get today has WAAAAAY more components than does Ye
Olde Stuffe, hence more more tickets in the MTBF lotto.

2.  It's possible that the huge market growth has brought with it
shoddy goods - whereas twenty years ago a mfg of crap might have been
too obvious to survive, perhaps today the pool is big enough to
obscure (or the mass-market ignorant enough to not identify)
poor-quality goods.

My money's riding on #1, though.


-- 
Christopher DeMarco <cmd at alephant.net>
Alephant Systems (http://alephant.net)
PGP public key at http://pgp.alephant.net
+1-412-708-9660
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