[Boatanchors] Re: Today's gear in 2055?

[Sheldon Daitch]

I think the idea of maintaining much of today's equipment is
not in the equation.  That is, parts will generally not be available
and with automated production equipment, it is cheaper to
install all new electronics inside a unit, than to spend tech
and shop time on troubleshooting to the board or component
level.

In the case of cellular radiotelephones, I suspect there really isn't
a long-term durability issue involved.  Most plans offer new phones
periodically anyway, and there are very few people using a cell
phone more than 2 or 3 years old, either due to changing technology
analog to digital, or the availability of new features.

Sheldon
WA4MZZ

Vic K2VCO wrote:

> J. Forster wrote:
>
> > Maybe so, but in constant dollars, a cell phone or modem these days costs less
> > than a single tube in 1955.
>
> Yes, and the way they did it was by eliminating maintainability and
> long-term durability from the design equation.
>
> Recently there was a discussion on another list about the expected
> lifetime of hard disk drives.  It turns out that the ATA drives most of
> us use in our computers are spec'd to last 3 to 5 years.  No wonder
> they're cheap!
>
> --
> 73,
> Vic, K2VCO