12 Aug
2012
12 Aug
'12
12:08 p.m.
Certain information normally does not show up in the
information you
list. Specifically, things related to the actually manufacture of the
machines. Very little documentation points out how the machines were
built, preferred vendors, subtle (or not so subtle) design flaws,
normal wear during expected lifetime, and so forth. For example - can
you tell me what brands of tubes IBM used in their mainframes, and why
RCA somehow was dropped from their preferred vendors list? Why did
Tung Sol and GE beat them? And who made the tube sockets? Amphenol?
EBY? AMP? Cinch? Who was preferred there?
Quite how running a machine destroys such infromation is beyond me. I
guess you're arguing that if a compoennt fails, then it will be
replaced, and thus what was there originally is lost.
Firstly, you have no way of knowign that hte machine _when you get it_ is
as it left the factory. Components will fail over the life of the
machine, they will be repalced. Perhaps not for an IBM, but certainly for
DEC and HP, a lot of techncial users did 'self maintenance' They will
have fitted whatever was to hand that works in a lot of cases. Certianyl
nto a part from the 'right vendor'.
Secondly, If you are running the machine _now_ and ap art fails, yuo
rpobably do repalce it with somthing non-original. But you log the fact,
you log what the old part was exactly ,and you keep said part, tagged
with where it came from. Then in the future you still ahve that
infromation.
-tony