Electronics Barn closing

From: Colin Douglas Howell <chowell2_at_pacbell.net>
Date: Mon Aug 2 19:01:22 2004

Tony Duell writes:
>
>> just get into different tools then older people who didn't have a computer
>> to play with when they grew up. When I was young I went out and purchased
>> some ram chips to fix my dead C64 (was stupid and touched a staticy TV while
>> my other hand was on the keyboard, ESD), equipment was expensive. Today if a
>> pc card breaks its cheaper to chuck it and get a new/used one then it is to
>> even think of looking for the parts to fix it, same with all other
>
> We've had this before, and I still don't believe it. If you can honstly
> tell me that it's cheaper (and quicker) to replace some large PCB costing
> several hundreed pounds/dollars than to find the dead I/O buffer chip
> (which sould cost a few 10s of pence, and which would take me about 10
> minutes to find at most), then I have to wonder what planet you're on.

How about replacing a card costing $25 to $50, vs. replacing the fried
surface-mounted ASIC (one of only two or three chips on the card), which
incidentally is only available to OEMs in the first place?

In order to make mass-market electronics so cheap, they have had to be tailored
to large-scale industrial producers, rendering them inaccessible to mere
mortals. To take one extreme example, the single IC of modern calculators isn't
packaged at all in the conventional sense--the chip is mounted right on the
printed circuit board and encased in a blob of resin to protect it.

And, of course, the logical conclusion of integrated circuit technology is to
get rid of the circuit board and separate components entirely.

Colin
Received on Mon Aug 02 2004 - 19:01:22 BST