Question For The List

I don't know about 20 years, but I certainly expect 10 out of a device. I like things that do one job and one job only, and do it well - and based on that I've got no expectation of wanting to replace that device for a good few years, so I'd rather that it was built to last. I'll run things like a TV, VCR, DVD player etc. into the ground, and I think somewhere around 1996 was the last time I bought a new part for a PC; I'll upgrade if someone's throwing a useful part out, but getting caught up in the "must upgrade every five minutes" cycle seems pretty foolish. The problem these days is that so many items are built based on price rather than quality, are deliberately built to have a short life (in order to keep customers reaching into their pockets), and are built to do several jobs at once - none of which they do particularly well due to the price constraints. Mobile phones are a good case in point. I want to use a phone to - surprise! - make phone calls with. I've got a camera for taking pictures. I've got a TV for watching TV. I've got a hifi (or portable CD player) for playing music on. I don't need a phone to do (badly, at low quality) all of those things - yet it seems impossible to get a phone these days that's built to last and handle phone calls well, without the expense of also paying for all the bundled features. For as long as the maximum life of its components under ideal (or as close as possible) conditions. Things like EPROMs and capacitors that are prone to dying can be replaced, so it's probably down to the natural life of other ICs - which is what, 50 years or so? No reason to expect that a properly-designed system with good cooling and no use of sub-standard parts can't be maintained and last that long if desired. Which is strange if you think about it - much of this hobby will be dead in 50 years time as the era of collectible systems is pretty much over (who wants to go around collecting PCs, Playstations and X-Boxes?). There'll still be emulators, documentation, research, and non-functional systems, but the running machines - which are of primary interest to most on this list I suspect - will be gone. OK, that's depressing. Time for more coffee. :-) cheers Jules