DEC RK07 drive interface specs wanted

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue May 18 18:29:48 2004

> And it must also be remembered that these folks did this when it was
> economically feasible to spend a day or two tracking down and repairing a
> problem. Business is time, and time is money, so as technology evolved
> and came down in price, it became more practical to just swap boards (both
> for the user and the supplier).

The problem is that all too often, board swapping does _not_ cure the
problem, or it introduces more problems, or... I have lost count of the
number of problems I've had to sort out that were made worse by somebody
(not necessarily a field servoid, it has to be said) replacing all
sorts of random parts.

>
> Sometimes we lose a sense of the more pragmatic aspects of tech work. If
> your business is halted because a computer system is down, would you
> rather your tech take a few hours or a day or two to track down and fix a
> problem, or would you rather they swap a few boards in an hour or so until
> they find the problem?

Well, in my experience it's more a case of 'You'll be down for a day, and
then the machine will run for 5 years without problems' .vs. 'We'll be up
in an hour, but you'll have all sorts of problems afterwards, and you'll
probably keep on having to have another hour's fiddling every other week
or so'. Of course they don't tell you that last bit ;-)

-tony
Received on Tue May 18 2004 - 18:29:48 BST