22 Sep
2011
22 Sep
'11
9:03 a.m.
On 22 Sep 2011 at 10:53, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
Just read this article from "bunnie". It
gives a, to me, appealing
vision of a return to what I think is quality:
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=1863
I hope at least some of what he says is true, although it might
preclude the singularity, which sounds fun :)
It's a nice thought, but I don't buy it completely. One thing that
Moore's Law drives is obsolesence--and that's the basic economic
driver for the economics of the PC business. Repair, given the short
period of time when an older PC is competitive in performance with a
new one is usually impractical, given the special skills and tools
needed to make said repairs. This is espeically true, when the
cost of labor to do the repair is compared with the price of a new
state-of-the-art unit.
While my comments have been mostly based in desktop systems, laptops
are much, much worse in terms of finding replacement components at a
competitive price.
Mobile devices, of course are the epitome of this sort of thing--pure
consumables, not durable goods at all. While an old landline phone
in the days of Western Electric and Ma Bell might have a service life
of 30 or 40 years, the model today is measured in months.
--Chuck