9 Jun
2006
9 Jun
'06
2:38 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
single board drives, we didn't want them to repair
the units. The =
No, you'd rather sell them a replacement drive than have them
replace some
$1 component (I've seen a Wren, there's a lot that can be field-repaired on
one, expecially given a schematic).
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Billy:
Once again you missed the point. Sure there's a few items on Wren that
could be repaired. Though in all the hundreds of thousands built, I never
saw a single PCB failure. And I wish you would consider your time as
valuable. Repair, as you said earlier, is not about the 10P resistor but
about the knowledge and experience of the technician. It is not free.
Maybe everybody, could fix it without damaging it. But if they didn't, then
the manufacturer is liable for the botched repair. And don't say this
didn't happen. For almost 10 years, those of us in Field Service had to go
out and clean up the messes that so called trained engineers created. I
have enough stories about the idiocy prevalent in the computer repair field,
that I've started writing a book about some of them. We did not want to
cater to this tiny miserable bunch that caused so much grief and expense, so
we forced a change. And it became a standard for peripheral companies.
Eliminating maintenance and repair on hard drives saved tens of millions of
dollars and raised our customer satisfaction enormously.
The main point is: to accommodate the whimsy of one hobbyist, we would have
had to invest 100's of thousands of dollars in technical manuals, keep them
up to date, make them available. The Wren had more than 50 variations - I
know because I had to track them. It would have required a staff of 20 to
keep the manuals accurate. Making a maintenance manual available would have
been a disastrous financial mistake.
And for what purpose? Only one person in the world would use this
documentation. Everyone else would prefer to spend the $50 on a new drive
than risk reusing a repaired one
Billy.
9 Jun
9 Jun
10:10 p.m.
Once again you missed the point. Sure there's a
few items on Wren that
I would say there's a lot more than a 'few items' that can be field
repaired, but anyway...
could be repaired. Though in all the hundreds of
thousands built, I =
never
saw a single PCB failure. And I wish you would consider your time as
I can't speak about the Wren specifically (I have a few, not in use, that
contain software for a Whitechapel Hitec which I must get round to
restoring sometime), but so far (touch wood), I've had only one failure
inside a hard drive HDA (this was on an almost-new 1.3GByte IDE drive
about 10 years ago). And perhaps 5 component failures on the logic boards
of older drives.
valuable. Repair, as you said earlier, is not about
the 10P resistor =
but
about the knowledge and experience of the technician. It is not free.
Maybe everybody, could fix it without damaging it. But if they didn't, =
then
the manufacturer is liable for the botched repair. And don't say this
Why is the manufacturer liable? I am _very_ happy to accept that as soon
as I attempt to repair (or modify) something then it is _my_
responsibity. I do not expect you (or anyone else) to sort out problems
that I may have caused myself.
As an aside, why do you assume that _not_ providing a service manual will
prevent botched repairs? You are not going to stop me having a go no
matter what. And I am likely to do a better job if I have the official
information, rather than having to work it all out myse;f.
didn't happen. For almost 10 years, those of us
in Field Service had to =
go
out and clean up the messes that so called trained engineers created. I
have enough stories about the idiocy prevalent in the computer repair =
field,
that I've started writing a book about some of them. We did not want =
I could turn that round and write several books on the things Field
Service have done (we called them Failed Circus for a darn good reason!).
I'll just give 3 examples...
1) The DEC 'enginner' who forced a video connector on upside-down so that
red and blue were reversed (this was on some type of VAXstation I
believe), and didn't know how to correct it.
2) My VT105 has been on DEC maintenance from new, and I have good reason
to believe that nobody else ever worked inside it before I got it.
None-the-less there was a spectacular flashover from the yoke area at
switch-on, after which it worked normally. Investigation showed that the
CRT ground wire had been connected to one of the adjustment tabs on the
picture centering magnets, not to the earth tag. Hmmm...
3) The Ramtek engineer who wanted to replace every PCB in a graphics
system that was failing all sorts of diagnostics. I reached over, touched
the 5V testpoint with a votlmeter and showed it was sitting at around 4V.
This idiot was actually ordered off the site by the system manager (who
was extremely clueful...)
I could go on. And on.
to
cater to this tiny miserable bunch that caused so much grief and =
expense, so
we forced a change. And it became a standard for peripheral companies.
It alas has become standard for most companies. Which means they don't
get any business from me.
Eliminating maintenance and repair on hard drives saved tens of millions =
of
dollars and raised our customer satisfaction enormously.
Of those customers who continued to buy your products...
And for what purpose? Only one person in the world would use this
documentation. Everyone else would prefer to spend the $50 on a new =
drive
than risk reusing a repaired one
Well, if I've got a few hundred megs of data on a hard drive, I'd rather
repair a simple electronic fault than have to restore it all from
backups. And it would take me lest time to repair such a fault than it
would take to ship the replacement drive.
-tony
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