22 Sep
2011
22 Sep
'11
9:16 a.m.
On 22 September 2011 17:03, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 22 Sep 2011 at 10:53, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
But what if that cycle slows down or to all intents and purposes
stops? What if next year's device is no better than this year's? Why
change, unless it's faulty?
I treasure some of my middle-aged PC kit, things like my 7YO Thinkpad
and my various 15-18YO Model M keyboards, which I use daily with
modern software and in the case of the keyboards on modern PCs. They
are legacy kit - the Thinkpad because it has a good keyboard and
multiple spare PSUs, which aren't the case with its modern successors.
The Thinkpad is still fast enough - just about - for what I need. I
don't need a Core i5 one, nice as it might be. And it's a Thinkpad, an
actual IBM one - meaning that it has already outlived younger, faster
Toshibas and Dells and HPs from my collection.
Huang's point is that this sort of thing is (probably) coming to more
and more machines. Either they'll be so cheap as to be disposable, in
which case diversity might reappear as custom kit becomes and stays
competitive with the current mainstream kit, or they'll be built to
last and you'll hang on to them and repair them because you like them
- because either way they will not be replaced by next year's better
model.
It's a very interesting point - tack f?r posten, Pontus!
--
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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.