Toshiba TV29C90 problem; Image fades to black...

[Rod Speed]

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote

Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
lsmartino <luismartino76@gmail.com> wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Please explain how the manufacturer of a light bulb, fluorescent
lamp or CFL can provide an estimate of the lifetime of the lamp.

That is trivial to do by running an adequate sized batch of
incandescent light bulbs under appropriate test conditions etc.

Don´t say "They can´t because it´s impossible".
Explain exactly why it´s impossible.

Its up to those who claim that its possible to design a device
to die one year after the warrant expires how that can be done.

Well, it can be estimated how long will a power semiconductor
run if you leave it without a proper heatsink.

Not in a domestic environment it aint, because
the ambient temperature varys so much.

I got a bit of a start relatively recently when someone was having
overheating problems with their PC to discover that they were one
of the few in this area who were silly enough to have no form of
cooling whatever, not even a swamp cooler, in an area which can
see 10 days over 40C some summers. We had one just last week
and it got to 44C, and it was like walking into a furnace walking
outside my airconditioned house.

Open any Samsung TV, for instance, to see for yourself
how important transistors are left bare, dissipatting heat
to the air. I don´t see why it should be difficult for the
manufacturer to know that these particular transistors
left overheating will fail within a finite number of hours.

There is no finite number of hours, because the
ambient temp varys so much in domestic situations.

Those who dont have any cooling at all in an area which
can see a week over 40C wont survive the warranty
period and those who have decent air conditioning will
find that the TV lasts long past the warranty period.

Also, you will notice that the same circuit will have electrolytic
capacitors near heat sources, when it´s a well known fact that
heat shortens dramatically the life of electrolytics caps.

In practice that isnt a significant problem with domestic
appliances. Essentially because you dont see many electros in that
situation with them.

The manufacturer know how to properly design an electronic
circuit in order to provide a long life, but it also it knows how
to design it to fail within a short term under certain conditions,

No they dont on that silly claim about surviving the
warranty fine, but failing immediately after that expires.

and accordingly they estimate a warranty just long
enough to cover the product for a safe term, a
safe term for the manufacturer, not the user.

Have fun explaining how come not a single electronic device
I have ever owned has died just after the warranty has run out.

And that includes my latest gigantic widescreen TV too.

Of course it´s impossible to predict exactly how many years
the TV will last, but the manufacturer count with statistical
data which says, for instance, that a TV set is turned on
10 hours per day for instance, and taking that into account,
and estimating how long the weakest part of the TV will last
under these conditions, they can determine the warranty lapse.

Pity about the TVs that get left on all the time.

The claim is completely fanciful and those making that sort of
claim have obviously never actually designed a damned thing.

And only the stupidest manufacturer would deliberatly design
their product to die as soon as the warranty has expired
anyway, because the bulk of those who had bought such
a dud wouldnt be buying another from that manufacturer.

They also do product reliability testing to see
how long on average it is before a product fails.

No they dont with domestic appliances.

They dont even do that with mass market hard drives anymore.

Yes they do.

No they dont.

They quote the useful lifetime of a hardrive in MTBF hours.

That is calculated, not measured. Convert that MTBF
to years and you will discover why they cant possibility
have tested them to get those numbers.

Don´t answer "it´s impossible" if you are not prepared to give
a real explanation. Samsung, Seagate, WD... any decent hard
drive manufactures gives an estimate lifetime of their products.
These estimates are provided in the datasheet of each harddrive.

And they are ESTIMATES, not measured results.

Exactly, these are estimates,

Pity the claim was about TESTING, which doesnt happen, like I said.

and most of the time very accurate,

Like hell it is. Have you actually tried converting
the MTBF of a current hard drive to years ?

The average quality EIDE drive has a published MTBF of
400,000 hours. That wouild be 45 years on my computer.

Yep, that's what I meant.

I've had LOTS that never made 3 years.

You arent cooling them properly.

BS. They have NEVER gone over 40 degrees C. They live year round
between 65 and 72 degrees F (talking about my own systems)

Then there is some other problem with the system
they are used in, most likely the power supply.

They start losing sectors after about a year, and
reach the undependable stage after 2 or three.

Have fun explaining how come others dont get that effect with those drives.

Some last 2 years, and some are still going after 7.
I've even got a Fujitsu MPG still running, and doing just
fine (that's one out of well over 100 I put into service)

If they test 1000 drives for 400 hours and get one failure, they
have their MTBF of 400,000 hours - 1 failure in 400,000 hours of
running.

Nope, it aint measured like that.

They will actually do a larger test sample over
a larger time span Likely 2500 for 500 hours.

No they dont with mass market commodity drives.

Give it up.

No thanks. That isnt done with mass market commodity drives.

That gives them 125,000,000 running hours and if they
have 3.125 failures they have a 400,000 hour MTBF.-

They dont determine the MTBF like that either.

but that's how the numbers are arrived at if they are not just
using statistical analysis methods.(predictive failure). Today's
hard drives with S.M.A.R.T. technology can predict their
failure date quite accurately. (using third party software).

Nope, they cant even consider the majority
of drives that fail with no prior indication of failure.

Other than bearing failure (which CAN cause S.M.A.R.T.
to find anomolies) and drive electronics failures,(which
generally do not, as they fail "hard") they can and DO
predict failure before any "prior indication of failure"

Pity about the drive electronics failure which doesnt and
which is now the most significant drive failure mode as
long as the drive isnt abused temperature wise or power.

I just pulled 2 drives from service because they
predicted their own death in less than 60 days.

Bet they wouldnt have failed in that time.

My time to restore the sytem is worth more than the replacement
drive, so I replace when it says there is a problem. Tried stretching
a laptop drive that said there was a problem developing and had to
replace it and do a complete restore less than 2 weeks later.

Plenty have found that steaming turd got the prediction completely wrong
and it was obvious why it was getting it wrong from the raw smart data too.

AND the smart data isnt necessarily an indication of an imminent
drive failure anyway, it can be due to factors outside the drive itself.

That steaming turd gets it wrong much more often than it gets it right.

One was made on the 123rd day of 2003 (seagate),
the other the last day of January 2004 (wd).

Being a WD Caviar retail drive it has a 1 year warranty. If it
was a "distribution" drive, it would have a 3 year warranty.
Might have lasted 2 years - but I don't take a chance on my data.

Anyone with a clue has proper backups.

Yup - have backups of all the data.

So your

Might have lasted 2 years - but I don't take a chance on my data.

is completely silly.

Still have to re-install all the OS and programs,
along with the myriad updates and patches.

No you dont if you do backups properly.

Also, when is the last time you actually TESTED your backup?

I do it all the time, essentially because I use image backups quite
a bit when deciding if there's a hardware problem of just an OS
level problem, image the system, do a clean install, see if the
problem goes away, if it doesnt, restore the image and look more
closely at the hardware to work out where the problem is.

I also routinely image a system before upgrading and do occassionally
need to image the new install, restore the original image, to check some
config detail etc that I want to reapply to the new clean install etc.

I test mine, but the majority have "blind faith" untill the time
comes that they NEED to restore. Restoration of the drive
can also take the better part of a day of downtime,

Only if your backup scheme is completely fucked.

while preventative replacement can
take as little as a couple hours in off-time.

You'd be better or working out why you get such lousy drive reliability.

The Seagate has a 1 year warranty, and was in a computer
that only runs a few hours a week - and lasted less than 3 years.
I used to work for the (then) largest hard drive distributor in Canada.

But didnt manage to work out how the MTBF is determined.

specially those concerning the maximum number of startups/stops
the drive can tolerate before the heads get completely worn.

Wrong again. Its such a round number it cant have been produced
by TESTING, and the number of starts and stops dont produce
any wear of the heads with modern hard drives anyway.

I don´t want to imply that all manufacturers are dishonest per se,
but I can easily see how a given manufacturer can produce different
items, with differents level of quality of design and manufacture.
And these differences *will* impact the useful lifetime of the final product.

Separate matter entirely to the claim that they do reliability
TESTING with domestic appliances.

They dont, and dont with mass market hard drives either to
produce the MTBF or the number of start stop cycles either.

 

[Ignoramus16071]

On 16 Jan 2007 10:32:53 -0800, Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote:

I am surprised that others have not responded to Ig's idea...it is an
excellent one.

It is also pretty cheap entertainment, since you take that stuff from
trash and later throw away just the same (and sometimes keep some
parts like screws, though usually screws are worthless on consumer
items)

Like an archaeologist, one can study the decline and fall of
manufacturing by studying discarded goods.

yep.

It is very apparent when one does this as to how many goods have turned
from good implementations to crap.

The end result forces the consumer to spend more money on goods that
would not need to be purchased.

The economic accolades about virtues of competition do not impress me
too much. I have economic education myself that is actually half
decent (MBA degree from University of Chicago), and hopefully
understand a thing or two about competition. Despite that background,
I generally share TMT's senstiment about "MBA"s, broadly understood as
people interested in making a quick buck and a quick career.

Competition is about satisfying what consumers value and care
about. Since consumers' preferences are not always in line with their
long term interests -- a situation intentionally created by poor
education and sophisticated advertising -- their satisfaction centers
around styling and cheap initial cost.

This is less so with commercial and especially industrial items,
though, again, not always.

If you do not believe me, take a few things apart and see how they are
made.

An objection is made that quality comes at a cost. That is, obviously,
true, but only to some extent. Some design decisions save very little
to the manufacturer (pennies) and result in a large loss to consumers
(unusable goods). Example, we had a cheap electric kettle. Because the
manufacturer saved perhaps a penny on thickness of plastic, the lid
broke at the hinge. Just a mm or two of extra plastic would make it
more usable. If it cost a dollar more, if would be a long term usable
kettle.

This is a result of two things, big chains putting extreme pressure on
manufacturers to make cheap substandard stuff (google "Wal-Mart
buyers"), and manufacturers' willingness to go along.

I try to not buy anything from Wal-mart and other ...marts anymore
besides soap and toilet paper etc, because of all this.

i

 

[Rod Speed]

Alan Moorman@visi.com wrote

et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black) wrote
(Alan Moorman@visi.com) writes

Planned obsolescence has been a tenet of the automobile
industry since the '30s. General Motors, in particular
used styling to make a 2 or 3 year-old-car look "old"
and in need of replacement with a newly styled model.

A bigger engine, prettier colors, new styles, all those
things are at the heart of 'planned obsolescence.'

"Improving" the features on your cell phone every
year is the result of planned obsolescence.

No, that's fashion. If the old still works, then it's not obsolete.

He's right.

People who follow fashion trends are in the same boat.
Their clothes aren't obsolete, they simply don't want to
wear them anymore because they want the latest.

"Fashion" allows companies to sell the same thing to the same people.

But the notion of "planned obsolescence" is that
it's designed from the beginner to not last long.

I'm not arguing that fashion causes people to buy new things.

Well, you may think that. But the term "planned obsolescence"
has been used for decades in exactly the way I described

Only by those who dont know what it means.

Packard who popularised the term didnt use it like that.

-- a way to make people feel their "old" thing is no
longer desirable and must be replaced with a "new" thing.

That isnt PLANNED obsolescence,
because there is no PLANNING involved.

You're applying the term to something that isn't
repairable, or to something that won't last a long time.

Yep, one that has been PLANNED to fail before it needs to.

 

[Rod Speed]

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote

Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote

Most companies data isn't worth anything after only a handful of years.

Engineering data is the heart of a business.

Not data thats a handful of years old.

Management often forgets that.

Then a competitor eats them alive.

Bet you cant list any examples of that with data thats older than a handful of years old.

I sure can.

Nope, you couldnt.

I milwright designs a feed mill. Back in 1966. He rebuilds that mill in 1981.
He builds 5 more mills between those dates, and onother 12 since.
His office burns down and he loses all his engineering drawings.

You cant use a single design over all that time.

or the drawings get soaked when a pipe breaks. How much
were those engineering drawings from 1965 worth today?
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Fantasy. You cant use a single fixed design over all that time.

Another firm with current engineering drawings
will eat him alive when a new mill is up for tender.
That's why he invests in a large format scanner and enters ALL the old
drawings into cad, at very high cost, and keeps 2 offsite backups.

Or take a land surveyor's office.
ALL the surveys done in the past 35+ years are kept onsite, and many are
referred to daily to tie in new surveys etc. What would it cost to regenerate
even a small fraction of those survey plans? What is their current value???
Significantly higher than the original cost to produce the survey.

Adequately covered by his original MOST.

Anthony Matonak wrote:
John Husvar wrote:
"Too_Many_Tools" <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote:
Archival storage of data is a BIG deal that the industry doesn't
like to talk about.

Most companies data isn't worth anything after only a handful of
years.

Well, I suppose one could print and store all all the data records
on acid-free paper and then physically go find the ones they
wanted. Shouldn't take more than a medium-sized army of clerks
and only a small hollowed mountain range for the storage.

The absolute best storage is microfilm or some variant of it.
You're pretty much assured that no matter what happens with
technology that you'll still be able to read it, even decades
later. You can buy computer microfilm printers. Direct print
to microfilm, no developing required.

Anthony

 

[Rod Speed]

Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote:

There's been various attempts over the years at marketing
easily upgradeable computers, but invariably by the time you
were ready to upgrade, the cost of a new CPU module was
a sizable portion of the cost of a whole new PC, as well as
the rest of the major components were showing their age.

The upgrade of electronics would not be a significant cost if the true
cost of a computer was borne by the company and not the public.

Fantasy. And the cost is ALWAYS borne by the public, regardless of how
the company may be slugged by hare brained penalty schemes anyway.

We keep hearing how the economy of electronics lowers the
cost of a product but one of the greatest costs to society is the
cost of production, distribution and disposal of electronic items.

They are a tiny part of the total production
distribution and disposal costs of everything else.

Even just food alone leaves it for dead.

It occurs because it is allowed to occur.

It occurs because there is no practical alternative
with an industry as fast moving as electronics.

James Sweet wrote:

And I want to add something about "planned obsolescence" because it
is often misused. If people are choosing to buy cheap, it's hardly
that the manufacturers are making things so they will break. The
consumer often wants that cheaper tv set or VCR.



Rather than planned obsolescence, it's normally more a case of how
many cost reducing corners can they cut and still have it last "long
enough". It's hard to blame the manufactures, they're supplying what
the average consumer is demanding.



If my computer from 1979 had been intended to last forever, it would
have been way out of range in terms of price. Because they'd have
to anticipate how much things would change, and build in enough so
upgrading would be doable. So you'd spend money on potential,
rather than spending money later on a new computer that would beat
out what they could imagine in 1979. And in recent years, it is
the consumer who is deciding to buy a new computer every few years
(whether a deliberate decision or they simply let the manufacturer
lead, must vary from person to person.)



There's been various attempts over the years at marketing easily
upgradeable computers, but invariably by the time you were ready to
upgrade, the cost of a new CPU module was a sizable portion of the
cost of a whole new PC, as well as the rest of the major components
were showing their age.

 

[Rod Speed]

Ignoramus16071 <ignoramus16071@NOSPAM.16071.invalid> wrote:

TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and
"designed to fail" theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart.
Look for signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will
find plenty. Such as parts that are obviously designed to fail.

How odd that I have never found a single example of that.

And I repair most things when its feasible.

 

[Rod Speed]

Everett M. Greene <mojaveg@mojaveg.lsan.mdsg-pacwest.com> wrote

Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> writes
Everett M. Greene <mojaveg@mojaveg.lsan.mdsg-pacwest.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> writes
terry <tsanford@nf.sympatico.ca> wrote

Although recent discussion/discovery that IPods will
exhaust their batteries in approximately one to two
years do clearly raise the question? "Designed to fail?".

Doesnt explain stuff like cordless phones that use standard batterys.

What explains the electric toothbrushes
that don't have replaceable batteries?

Its harder to design something as compact
as that with standard replaceable batterys.

What's smaller and more compact than present-day cell phones?

ipods, USB keys, ear buds, etc etc etc.

ipods too.

You have to toss a $60-$120 device just because a $5 battery has failed.

Indeed.

 

[Rod Speed]

Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote:

I am surprised that others have not responded
to Ig's idea...it is an excellent one.

Nope, a complete dud.

All I have ever found is examples of bad design.

Like an archaeologist, one can study the decline and
fall of manufacturing by studying discarded goods.

There is no 'decline and fall' there has in fact been
a tremendous SURGE in manufacturing instead.

It is very apparent when one does this as to how many
goods have turned from good implementations to crap.

Mindlessly silly if you actually analyse the reliability of even
the most trivial stuff like moulded power cords and plug packs.

The end result forces the consumer to spend more
money on goods that would not need to be purchased.

You can keep repeating that mindless line till you
are blue in the face if you like, changes nothing.

And it is intentional.

The only intention is to produce cheap product in very high
volume and that inevitably sees some crap product aimed at
those who concentrate on JUST the price when buying stuff.

Even you cant seriously believe that the lousy reliability
of US cars compared with the best of the Jap imports
is due to deliberately designing the cars to fail early.

Or maybe you actually are that silly.

Ignoramus16071 wrote:
TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and "designed to fail"
theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart. Look for
signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will find plenty. Such
as parts that are obviously designed to fail.


i

 

[Everett M. Greene]

"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> writes:

Everett M. Greene <mojaveg@mojaveg.lsan.mdsg-pacwest.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> writes
terry <tsanford@nf.sympatico.ca> wrote

Although recent discussion/discovery that IPods will
exhaust their batteries in approximately one to two
years do clearly raise the question? "Designed to fail?".

Doesnt explain stuff like cordless phones that use
standard batterys.

What explains the electric toothbrushes that don't
have replaceable batteries?

Its harder to design something as compact as that
with standard replaceable batterys.

What's smaller and more compact than present-day cell phones?

ipods too.

You have to toss a $60-$120 device just because a $5
battery has failed.

Indeed.

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

It occurs because it is allowed to occur.

It occurs because there is no practical alternative
with an industry as fast moving as electronics.

LOL...you mean an industry that has so far been able to dump long term
costs on the public.

When you see electronics being dumped in Africa to avoid the cost of
disposal, I think we are seeing the responsibility coming home to roost
soon.

And when the cost of disposal is finally taken into account, the true
cost of electronics will be adjusted for that disposal.

It can't come soon enough....

TMT
Rod Speed wrote:

Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote:

There's been various attempts over the years at marketing
easily upgradeable computers, but invariably by the time you
were ready to upgrade, the cost of a new CPU module was
a sizable portion of the cost of a whole new PC, as well as
the rest of the major components were showing their age.

The upgrade of electronics would not be a significant cost if the true
cost of a computer was borne by the company and not the public.

Fantasy. And the cost is ALWAYS borne by the public, regardless of how
the company may be slugged by hare brained penalty schemes anyway.

We keep hearing how the economy of electronics lowers the
cost of a product but one of the greatest costs to society is the
cost of production, distribution and disposal of electronic items.

They are a tiny part of the total production
distribution and disposal costs of everything else.

Even just food alone leaves it for dead.

It occurs because it is allowed to occur.

It occurs because there is no practical alternative
with an industry as fast moving as electronics.


James Sweet wrote:

And I want to add something about "planned obsolescence" because it
is often misused. If people are choosing to buy cheap, it's hardly
that the manufacturers are making things so they will break. The
consumer often wants that cheaper tv set or VCR.



Rather than planned obsolescence, it's normally more a case of how
many cost reducing corners can they cut and still have it last "long
enough". It's hard to blame the manufactures, they're supplying what
the average consumer is demanding.



If my computer from 1979 had been intended to last forever, it would
have been way out of range in terms of price. Because they'd have
to anticipate how much things would change, and build in enough so
upgrading would be doable. So you'd spend money on potential,
rather than spending money later on a new computer that would beat
out what they could imagine in 1979. And in recent years, it is
the consumer who is deciding to buy a new computer every few years
(whether a deliberate decision or they simply let the manufacturer
lead, must vary from person to person.)



There's been various attempts over the years at marketing easily
upgradeable computers, but invariably by the time you were ready to
upgrade, the cost of a new CPU module was a sizable portion of the
cost of a whole new PC, as well as the rest of the major components
were showing their age.

 

[runderwo@mail.win.org]

macy@california.com wrote:

Where to get parts to fix the Daytek 1731-D monitor?

The high voltage doesn't come on, the group said they've seen this as
the 'usual' failure for this monitor.

But it is very difficult to identify the parts and where to get them?

Or is there a parts list somewhere?

- Robert -

The main problem is that this model number has been overloaded since
the 80's by Daytek. You might start by contacting them with the serial
number in hand or some specific information like the markings on the
main board or neck board.

 

[Rod Speed]

Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote

It occurs because it is allowed to occur.

It occurs because there is no practical alternative
with an industry as fast moving as electronics.

LOL...you mean an industry that has so far been
able to dump long term costs on the public.

There is no practical alternative, like I said.

The public certainly isnt going to wear 'environmental'
fools proclaiming that they cant have modern electronic
devices because of some purported long term costs.

And what long term costs there are are completely trivial
compared with the long term costs of the food industry
alone, let alone the car industry, etc etc etc anyway.

When you see electronics being dumped in Africa
to avoid the cost of disposal, I think we are seeing
the responsibility coming home to roost soon.

Nope, all you are actually seeing is the inevitable
result of terminally silly 'environmental' legislation.

And when the cost of disposal is finally taken into account,
the true cost of electronics will be adjusted for that disposal.

Just utterly silly pointless paper shuffling.

It can't come soon enough....

Taint gunna happen, you watch.

Its only the europeans that are actually stupid enough to
even attempt something like that. And even they arent
actually stupid enough to do much in that area anyway.
Because even the stupidest politician realises what the
electoral consequences of that would inevitably be.

They'd be out on their arses so fast their feet wouldnt even touch the ground.

Rod Speed wrote:
Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote:

There's been various attempts over the years at marketing
easily upgradeable computers, but invariably by the time you
were ready to upgrade, the cost of a new CPU module was
a sizable portion of the cost of a whole new PC, as well as
the rest of the major components were showing their age.

The upgrade of electronics would not be a significant cost if the
true cost of a computer was borne by the company and not the public.

Fantasy. And the cost is ALWAYS borne by the public, regardless of
how the company may be slugged by hare brained penalty schemes
anyway.

We keep hearing how the economy of electronics lowers the
cost of a product but one of the greatest costs to society is the
cost of production, distribution and disposal of electronic items.

They are a tiny part of the total production
distribution and disposal costs of everything else.

Even just food alone leaves it for dead.

It occurs because it is allowed to occur.

It occurs because there is no practical alternative
with an industry as fast moving as electronics.


James Sweet wrote:

And I want to add something about "planned obsolescence" because
it is often misused. If people are choosing to buy cheap, it's
hardly that the manufacturers are making things so they will
break. The consumer often wants that cheaper tv set or VCR.



Rather than planned obsolescence, it's normally more a case of how
many cost reducing corners can they cut and still have it last
"long enough". It's hard to blame the manufactures, they're
supplying what the average consumer is demanding.



If my computer from 1979 had been intended to last forever, it
would have been way out of range in terms of price. Because
they'd have to anticipate how much things would change, and build
in enough so upgrading would be doable. So you'd spend money on
potential, rather than spending money later on a new computer
that would beat out what they could imagine in 1979. And in
recent years, it is the consumer who is deciding to buy a new
computer every few years (whether a deliberate decision or they
simply let the manufacturer lead, must vary from person to
person.)



There's been various attempts over the years at marketing easily
upgradeable computers, but invariably by the time you were ready to
upgrade, the cost of a new CPU module was a sizable portion of the
cost of a whole new PC, as well as the rest of the major components
were showing their age.

 

[Vic Smith]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:12:19 -0500, clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:16:05 +1100, "Rod Speed"
rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote:


How many people who owned Chevy Vegas
bought a second one? THOUSANDS.

Bugger all that had one blow up their face.

How about under their ass?

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Before I
stasrted innthe computer business I had 25 years under my belt in the
automotive service industry. Ten of those years as a service manager.
I was in the industry when the Vega was produced and sold. I saw them
fail. I saw the owners buying new vegas. I saw them buying no Chevies
after the vega was no longer made. They bought Chevy Cavaliers ten and
15 years later. They bought new ones when the head gaskets blew and
the heads cracked. Man, it takes a lot of bad Ju-Ju to get a died in
the wool Chevy man to switch brand loyalty!!!!!!

There's Chevy men and then there's Chevy men.

People who were ignorant enough to buy Vegas didn't know squat about
cars. I personally knew one victim.
They are now most likely Toyota and Honda men, which is good for them.
Some Vega "facts:"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Vega
Keep in mind that *all* cars of that era were junk compared to most of
today's offerings. Toyotas, Datsuns and Hondas were also junk.
The only solid plus-100k engines were 350's and GM and Chryco straight
sixes, and the 350's heads weren't the best. I'll add the 318 as a
good one but I never had one. Besides, the cars usually rusted out
before the engine could test the 100k range.
You can still find junk in recent American car offerings. Can't point
them out as I'm not in the market now. But I've heard mentions.
Since I'm reading this in the "frugal" group I'll note that as a value
proposition (cost vs use) I recognize Chevy as Champion, but others
may see from a different perspective.
I do know how to buy cars, and have my own discriminations.
BTW, I only buy used cars which have a model/engine record.
I "pay" for that in my own way, which is where " Planned Obsolescence"
or MTBF may be relevant.
For instance, I plan to replace my Delco Chevy alternator long before
a Nippo/Denso would fail. Same with the GM water pump versus Jap.
This can be done very cheaply, whether I turn the wrench or hire it,
but you have know "stuff" about cars, wrenches and hiring.
Understandably, most people find it best for them to just get a
Toyota/Honda and pay a higher cost for less maintenance.
Too bad for the American car companies they kenned to that too late.
But I have confidence that current Chevys will serve me well when it's
time to buy them.
This is all outside of "handling" and "driving the twisties" issues,
which I have no interest in since the roads are easy wherever I drive
and I am a mundane driver with no need for speed or compulsions to
spastically jerk the steering wheel.

Now there ARE lots of people who will buy anything - don't mater who
made it - but in North America there are Ford people who will never
own anything BUT a Ford. There are Chevy people who would never buy a
Pontiac or a Buick. Make any sense? Nope.

You're right if the person is a "brand loyalist." And you're right
there are plenty of them still around,
But it makes perfect sense if they specialize in the marque with open
eyes and the marque provides models that suit their needs.
In terms of cost/reliabilty knowing a brand intimately makes used car
selection pretty easy on those terms.

Even people who quit buying Chrysler products when they could no
longer buy a Plymouth. Buy a Dodge? Not on your life.Old habits die
hard - particularly with old guys and cars.

Yep. Strange. Sometimes these guys seem to value their

"relationship" with the dealer service department. They're
"good guys" and "take care of me." "Excellent coffee."
Go figure.
I think the Chryco fans are the worst, then maybe the Caddy
guys. It could be argued that Chevy never had the same kind of
fanaticism. Since it's the "low-end" marque and sold more
cars, it just exposed more people to its "charms ".
Nobody much brags about Chevy except in terms like "hey, my Chevy
goes where your Lexus goes at 5% of the cost."

And how many who bought Vega bought another Chevy?
Thousands and thousands and tens of thousands.

A larger amount by far never bought a Chevy again.

I'd guess that most people (Honda-heads and Toyota-Hindus being
notable exceptions) aren't "brand loyalists."
Most of those who brag that what they have is the "best brand"
will turn on a dime, then brag about the new brand.
And many just like the looks of their car and care about little else
unless or until it proves a lemon.

--Vic

 

[James Sweet]

Ignoramus16071 wrote:

TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and "designed to fail"
theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart. Look for
signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will find plenty. Such
as parts that are obviously designed to fail.


i

Designed to fail, or designed to be cheap? When you see these "designed
to fail" parts, does it often appear that they could be made to last
much better for the same cost?

 

[dpb]

Rod Speed wrote:

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote

Most companies data isn't worth anything after only a handful of years.

Engineering data is the heart of a business.

Not data thats a handful of years old.

Management often forgets that.

Then a competitor eats them alive.

Bet you cant list any examples of that with data thats older than a handful of years old.

I sure can.

Nope, you couldnt.

I'm sure he could, and I can add a few more, both of own and from other
references as well--

From own experience, it's a regulatory requirement of NRC to keep _all_
safety-related design documentation and calculations for 40 years of

"life of the plant". That's simply one instance of on need for
longterm records-keeping.

There's a whole industry dedicated to preserving data for companies
from finanical to manufacturing and everything in between. It's a
major use of the excavated areas of the salt mines in central KS as
they're fantastically dry, constant temperature, fire and vermin-free
and of humongous size.

For a couple of stories you might check out Jack Ganssle's columns that
he writes for Embedded System magazine -- a mostly unheard of by very
important niche of the microprocessor world. In fact, there are far
more processors used in such applications than in PCs though they don't
have the glamour of the "lastest and fastest" whatever of the day...

http://www.embedded.com/columns/bp/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103292

Jack also distributes a monthly newsletter that has had as one of its
subjects recently reconstructing "legacy" systems. I myself have had
requests for modifications of some systems I had previously worked on
that I would have thought long since "dead and buried" having moved on
to other projects and even other companies, but was tracked down as the
only individual they could find that had any recollection of the actual
system.

Another reader of Jack's newsletter sent an interesting tale of his
experience --

....
"I was brought in as a consultant for one of the downstream users of
an early video-on-demand companies, who supplied complete systems and
programming to hotels and hospitals, even providing a broadband network
infrastructure for free to sell their services.

"There was a need to add new educational programming services for a
client market, or be displaced by a competitor.

"The company had not built their code from scratch in more than 10
years. In fact, they had decided to move to cross compilation rather
than self hosting for a while, had bought a commuter and new tools,
never tried the tools, and had subsequently sold the cross host machine
for scrap.

"Our first task was to put together a development environment hosted
on a "dead" OS, including compilers, linkers, and build control files,
gather known source, and attempt to rebuild the shipping object from
known source.

"This took several months, and was a real adventure. A year and a
half down the road, job complete, ..."

He goes on to describe the system and other technical details probably
of little if any interest here, but needless to say, that little
misadventure of not preserving nor updating their ability to rebuild
their product's software undoubtedly cost that company a pretty penny
and without that effort likely could indeed have put them out of at
least that particular business.

Undoubtedly, these few instances given here are far from the only
occurrences of such in industry. And, for every one that did manage to
recover, how many were there who were unable to?

 

[Mark Jerde]

Your thoughts?

I recall the 1960's:
- TVs going out until a repairman with a bunch of tubes showed up.
- Automobiles needing constant maintenance. (Why was there a "Service
Station" on every corner? Hint: Cars needed *constant* service.)
- 20,000 miles on bias-ply tires was more than you could expect.

Lately, having gone over 80k miles on tires, and no service in 150k miles,
it's true:

"They Don't Build Them Like They Used To -- Thank God!" ;-)

-- Mark

 

[Ignoramus16071]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:41:59 GMT, James Sweet <jamessweet@hotmail.com> wrote:

Ignoramus16071 wrote:
TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and "designed to fail"
theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart. Look for
signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will find plenty. Such
as parts that are obviously designed to fail.


i


Designed to fail, or designed to be cheap? When you see these "designed
to fail" parts, does it often appear that they could be made to last
much better for the same cost?

Well, let me give you one example. We had a electric tea kettle. It
broke the hinge on the lid. Postmortem indicated that it broke because
it lacked material around the hinge. At the cost of extra 1-2 cents,
they could have a few mm more plastic around the hinges so that they
hold up better.

The extra cost is minuscule.

Another example, I received a KMart wallet as a gift and it is
unusable -- the credit card pockets are too tight and it is generally
too tight for money also(I like to carry a few hundred $$ in cash etc,
which does not affect credit card pockets). Again, at the cost of
perhaps 10 cents per wallet, it could have been made into a better
wallet.

If anyone has suggestions for a really good three section leather
wallet, I will appreciate.

i

 

[Rod Speed]

dpb <dpbozarth@swko.net> wrote

Rod Speed wrote
clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Too_Many_Tools <too_many_tools@yahoo.com> wrote

Most companies data isn't worth anything after only a handful of years.

Engineering data is the heart of a business.

Not data thats a handful of years old.

Management often forgets that.

Then a competitor eats them alive.

Bet you cant list any examples of that with data thats older than
a handful of years old.

I sure can.

Nope, you couldnt.

I'm sure he could,

Unlikely given that he clearly didnt.

and I can add a few more, both of own and from other references as well--

Adequately covered by the original MOST.

From own experience, it's a regulatory requirement of
NRC to keep _all_ safety-related design documentation and
calculations for 40 years of "life of the plant". That's simply
one instance of on need for longterm records-keeping.

Different matter entirely to the original point.

WORTH isnt the same thing as a legal REQUIREMENT.

There's a whole industry dedicated to preserving data for
companies from finanical to manufacturing and everything
in between. It's a major use of the excavated areas of the
salt mines in central KS as they're fantastically dry, constant
temperature, fire and vermin-free and of humongous size.

Irrelevant to whether that data is engineering data that is WORTH much.

Of course there is plenty of data that needs to be kept long term,
most obviously with birth marraige and death records etc etc etc.

For a couple of stories you might check out Jack Ganssle's columns
that he writes for Embedded System magazine -- a mostly unheard of
by very important niche of the microprocessor world. In fact, there are
far more processors used in such applications than in PCs though they
don't have the glamour of the "lastest and fastest" whatever of the day...

http://www.embedded.com/columns/bp/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103292

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

Jack also distributes a monthly newsletter that has had as one of its
subjects recently reconstructing "legacy" systems. I myself have had
requests for modifications of some systems I had previously worked on
that I would have thought long since "dead and buried" having moved on
to other projects and even other companies, but was tracked down as the
only individual they could find that had any recollection of the actual system.

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

Another reader of Jack's newsletter sent an interesting tale of his experience --

"I was brought in as a consultant for one of the downstream users of
an early video-on-demand companies, who supplied complete systems
and programming to hotels and hospitals, even providing a broadband
network infrastructure for free to sell their services.

"There was a need to add new educational programming
services for a client market, or be displaced by a competitor.

"The company had not built their code from scratch in more than 10
years. In fact, they had decided to move to cross compilation rather
than self hosting for a while, had bought a commuter and new tools,
never tried the tools, and had subsequently sold the cross host
machine for scrap.

"Our first task was to put together a development environment hosted
on a "dead" OS, including compilers, linkers, and build control files,
gather known source, and attempt to rebuild the shipping object from
known source.

"This took several months, and was a real adventure. A year and a
half down the road, job complete, ..."

He goes on to describe the system and other technical details probably
of little if any interest here, but needless to say, that little
misadventure of not preserving nor updating their ability to rebuild
their product's software undoubtedly cost that company a pretty penny
and without that effort likely could indeed have put them out of at
least that particular business.

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

Undoubtedly, these few instances given here are far from the
only occurrences of such in industry. And, for every one that did
manage to recover, how many were there who were unable to?

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

 

[dpb]

Too_Many_Tools wrote:

....
The upgrade of electronics would not be a significant cost if the true
cost of a computer was borne by the company and not the public.

You said somewhere else you had an education in economics, but it
certainly doesn't seem to show.

Even if you could somehow come up with this mystical "true cost of a
computer" to tax the manufacturer for, where but from the eventual
customer would "the company" have to generate this revenue? And,
having done so, what else could happen but to raise the cost to "the
public"?

Of course, the employer pays that 6.25% FICA tax, too.

 

[Rod Speed]

Ignoramus16071 <ignoramus16071@NOSPAM.16071.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:41:59 GMT, James Sweet
jamessweet@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ignoramus16071 wrote:
TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and "designed to fail"
theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart. Look for
signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will find plenty.
Such as parts that are obviously designed to fail.


i


Designed to fail, or designed to be cheap? When you see these
"designed to fail" parts, does it often appear that they could be
made to last much better for the same cost?

Well, let me give you one example. We had a electric tea kettle. It
broke the hinge on the lid. Postmortem indicated that it broke because
it lacked material around the hinge. At the cost of extra 1-2 cents,
they could have a few mm more plastic around the hinges so that they
hold up better.

The extra cost is minuscule.

Another example, I received a KMart wallet as a gift and it is
unusable -- the credit card pockets are too tight and it is generally
too tight for money also(I like to carry a few hundred $$ in cash etc,
which does not affect credit card pockets). Again, at the cost of
perhaps 10 cents per wallet, it could have been made into a better
wallet.

Both of those are just lousy design, not planned
obsolescence or designed deliberately to fail.

If anyone has suggestions for a really good
three section leather wallet, I will appreciate.