Re: Heinlein on automobiles

Mike Ash <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <4a0b99a7.75896484@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
fairwater@xxxxxxxxx (Derek Lyons) wrote:

Mike Ash <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

No moving parts may not mean simple, but it does generally mean
reliable. Absent cheap capacitors or the failure of rotating platters,
your PC is likely to last a couple of decades with zero maintenance.

Given that big iron, usually made of sterner stuff than the home PC,
can't last that long without maintenance...

Well, your conclusion is wrong.

I didn't draw a conclusion, I made a statement. Learn to tell the
difference.

In my experience, PCs fail for three reasons: externally inflicted
damage (electrical or mechanical), wear on moving parts, or under-specified
capacitors. Of the three, only that last one is an example of a solid-state
machine failing after normal use, and that's only in machines with (often
deliberate) poor design.

And your experience with detailed forensic examination of PC's is
what? (I.E. working in a computer repair shop since the dawn of PC's
doesn't even remotely cut it as they don't do detailed forensics
there.)

Pick a random PC from the 80s that hasn't been dumped in a landfill or
otherwise destroyed. Odds are quite good that it will still work, except
possibly for the moving parts. Certainly none of my computers have
experienced any failure outside of the categories I mention, and in my
years of working on other people's computers, both as favors and once
upon a time professionally, I never once encountered one that had failed
for a reason other than those.

In all my years of working on computers, I've seen computers under a
couple of years old fail (other than moving parts) routinely and for a
variety of reasons I could physically see and and even larger number
for reasons that I could not see and would likely take significant
engineering effort to determine.

But then I'm honest enough not to groundlessly assume that a failed
cap is under specced.

As to why your conclusion is wrong, I can only assume that either big
iron does *not* need the regular maintenance you specify, it needs
regular maintenance only for moving parts, or big iron is not built as
well as the name would imply.

Or you are wrong on all the counts.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
.

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