The PC's Soviet?

From: Hotze <photze_at_batelco.com.bh>
Date: Wed Apr 15 21:44:10 1998

>>The soviets always had comparable technology, but were limited by
>>inefficient manufacturing and logistics. Those only exposed to western
>>design philosophy tend to belittle soviet engineers because of the
>>seemingly crude appearance of their equipment, but they had to meet
>>vastly different product requirements. Their export market was the
>>underdeveloped third world, no infrastructure at all. When your target
>>market is some place like Mongolia, Eritrea or South Yemen you have an
>>entirely different set of design parameters. There is no Radio Shack
>>down the corner, no parts store in town, no UPS delivery service. Even
>
>Why Radio Shack when you have BFI? I can just imagine a fried US
>made cell phone flying into a third-world bonfire...that sure would
>stink. Another reason why Russian products were build to last was,
>very simply, because if you trash your phone, you'd have to get on
>a two-month waiting list to get another one.

See? That's my biggest complaint about the Soviets. They gave communism a
bad name. The USSR, in my opinion, wasn't a true communism any more than
Rome was a democracy after they had "dictators for life." Nice try, but a
true communism would be the opposite. Everyone would have everything, if
humans worked on an equal basis. That's why communisms don't work with
people: They'res a few rotten apples in every barrell.
    Also, look at Soviet technology and people as a whole. Even though
MiG's did use vaccum tubes, they were still considered a threat, when
equipped with Soviet pilots.
    As for the technology, I'll say that it wasn't behind the US, but rather
on a path that we didn't follow, and so it looked like they were behind us.
BTW, I'm guessing that with a $20,000 A2 clone, the avreage Dmitri didn't
get one in the USSR.
    Tim D. Hotze
Received on Wed Apr 15 1998 - 21:44:10 BST