Re: Camera Card Reader

David J Taylor added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

Chris Malcolm wrote:
[]
I was wondering how soon cars would come into it. Well, I
don't know about the US, but in the UK unleaded petrol (gas)
has now gone, so if you had an older car you did have to
upgrade.

But you didn't have to upgrade by buying an entire new car. All
you had to do was to upgrade the valve seats. There were and
are plenty of places which do such conversions. Standard
engineering work. And you didn't have to do that upgrade
immediately. You could get by for a long time by adding your
own extra non-lead additives to your tank at fill up time.

I don't know anyone who actually had a workshop upgrade done -
most simply ensured that their next car was lead-free
compatible. And do people change cars more often than PCs?

Around here, pretty much the only cars I ever see that really
require both leaded and high octane gas are the vintage muscle cars
of the 1960s and early 1970s. Those people will install new valves
and valve seats when rebuilding their engines and/or use a lead
additive and an octane boost additive since even premium nolead
isn't enough. Seems to me that our highest grade nolead is 93
octane but the most powerful muscle cars liked more, as much as 100
octane.

You don't have to upgrade to Vista, you can wait until you get
your next PC. Digital TV is another example. In both the US
and the UK soon analog transmissions will be a thing of the
past, so you /have/ to upgrade either by getting a new TV or a
set-top-box. The 405-line to 625-line transition was an earlier
example.

One doesn't even have to choose Vista when buying a new PC IF the
OEM will install XP at extra cost. You're right about analog TV but
not that many people are really affected since so many have some
sort of cable or satellite service. But, to help the transition,
our gubmint will subsidize the changeover with coupons for two
converter boxes.

Whilst it's not at all an exact parallel, and while the
timescales are rather different, dropping support for earlier
technologies is not unique to computing.

No, and sorry to bring back cars into the discussion again, but
people actually DO have the rather romantic notion that once
bought, they will NEVER have to actually "upgrade" their car beyond
things like recalls or required repairs. People believe that a car,
no matter how old, should start and run every day for hundreds of
thousands of miles often for a decade or two. How often, for
example, have you EVER had to pull over, shut your car off, and
"reboot" it? PCs, OTOH, require this nonsense all the time. And,
Windows produces many "critical updates" each and ever month yet my
cars only RARELY need to have one of the computer chips reflashed
to correct a defect.

There's a couple of reasons why this is so. The biggest one is that
the millions of lines of computer code in a modern car are within a
closed system, no need to support an infinite array of SW and HW.
Another is that safety and emissions laws require manufacturers to
very rigorously test cars under conditions so brutal as to defy
imagination. e.g., I've seen Chrysler's environmental chamber where
temps can be set from -80 deg F to +150 deg, it can be "sunny" and
hot or rainy or snowy or sleet or anything. Wind can range up to 80
mph and the "rain" can be blown against the car sideways. After
each of these tests, the car and ALL of it's components and systems
are still expected to work perfectly. Likewise, cars are bombarded
with a variety of EMF signals looking for anything that might
distupt the electronics. Finally, cars are tested at a proving
grounds for at least 100,000 miles and engines are tested on
dynomometers for the same cold-to-hot temp ranges I described above
plus a variety of fuels. Engines are both heat- and cold-soaked
overnight and then run up. During starts and run ups, emissions are
checked to ensure full compliance. Compare any of THAT to the test
suites of a typical O/S house or application developer!

Also, car makers are required in the US to provide replacement
parts, including all safety and emissions components, for a minimum
of 10 years and 100,000 miles. But, PCs can barely survive even one
new version of Windows without having to make major upgrades.
Again, cars are expected to start and run correctly and cleanly for
the entire 10 years/100,000 miles - in fact, longer than required
by law - WITHOUT any major component ugrades. Can anyone point to a
PC that can do the same, unless it is one that is entirely closed
with NO new things added?

Likewise, manufacturers of about any "hard" commodities must also
design and test their products for ultra-long life cycles with NO
upgrades. People actually believe, for example, that their washers
and dryers will run for a couple of decades!

Having said that, it was only recently that my last Windows NT 4
system was decommissioned, and I still have Windows 2000 in
active service, working as well as it ever did.

Just about when I start to think about a new computer, I hear that
yet another brand new version of Windows will be foisted on me. As
I've said, since I have the luxury of waiting, I prefer NOT to buy
whatever next year's new toy will be at least until the major bugs
and incompatibilities are wrung out. But, I DO fully expect to have
to do some major changeovers to my older SW and likely get a new
scanner, which I'd like to do anyway.

Whatever, enjoy your Christmas, David!

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Accuracy is the degree a measurement meets a known or true value
while precision is the degree of reproducibility in the measurement
itself" - Mathematical definition


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