Comment on 'boardswapping' as part of the computer culture.

You know as well as I do that manufacturers love the board-swapping idea. It means they can employ total idiots as field-servoids. It means they can sell a service manual that contains no information and therefore doesn't give away any secrets (for all said 'secrets' could be discovered if an intellegent person looked at the real hardware). It means they have a monopoly on spare parts (if I have to swap a board, I have to get it anywhere). This does not mean there are good engineering reasons for not doing proper diagnosis and repair. As regards what's more successful, _every_ time I've tried board-swapping, I've had more problems than I started with. When I find the fault using test gear, I put it right, and the machine stays working. Quite likely board-swapping will get the machine to do _something_ again in a shorter time than finding the fault properly, but doing the latter will get the machine doing the _right_ thing, and will make sure it keeps on doing that. There's no point in be wasting my breath with you, since you clearly know everything. Fortunately the rest of us are not in that position, so we find it useful to exchange information. Serveral times you've made comments that suggest you want me to leave this list. AFAIK you are not the list owner, that's Jay. He's the only person who can kick me off. -tony