4 Jan
2007
4 Jan
'07
7:48 p.m.
In article <B9639BAE3F34504E83FEEDD71D4AFB460A660A at mail.bensene.com>,
"Rick Bensene" <rickb at bensene.com> writes:
I am wondering what the use is of a schematic that contains deliberate
errors that are significant enough to stop the machine from working. OK,
you can't use it to make a copy, but you surely can't also use it to
repair the real machine (what do you do if the faulty part is a section
that has errors in the schematics?).
[...] Wang is also
famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to
throw off competitors who would use such schematics to reverse-engineer
how the machines work. [...]
Wow, I'd never heard that story before. Interesting!
How many other companies did this back when schematics were pretty
much leaving the machine laying naked in front of you?
I've never seen any 'deliberate errors' in HP, DEC, Tekky, etc diagrams.
There's a very obvious error in the PERQ scheamtics book (I think in the
tablet diagrams) where a 3 terminal regulator is drawn with all 3 pins
tied to ground, but if you don't spot that one, you shouldn't be fixing a
computer in the first place. And I don't think it's a deliberate error
because it is so obvious.
-tony