DEC troubleshooting

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Thu Nov 5 21:06:16 1998

At 04:48 PM 11/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> Sure. Tell the customer he/she will be down an extra hour while
>> you extend the board to find the fault, desolder the chip
>> and replace the 10 cent bus driver. Nope. Swapping was reality in the
field
>> when I was there.
>
>I must agree here. Doing component level debugging just makes no sense in
>the field.
>
   It may not make sense time wise but it does when you consider the cost
of sparing circuit boards instead of component parts. I worked in field
service for Burroughs Corp and a private company that supported TI and IBM
mainframes and we ALWAYS did component level repair. We didn't even have
spare boards.


>> Board level (early 80's DEC) was (unfortunately)
>> replaced with shotgunning and option swap out by many in the late 80's.
>
>Did the boards not go back to DEC for rework?

   I later worked as an electronics technician for a company that had been
sending industrial controller boards back for repair. The flat rate cost
was $800 per board. I was hired to repair the boards and they saved the
cost of my yearly salarly in the first month.

   Joe
>
>William Donzelli
>william_at_ans.net
>
>
Received on Thu Nov 05 1998 - 21:06:16 GMT