| Re: Design Mistakes [message #96522 is a reply to message #96521] |
Wed, 15 March 2023 17:49   |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 18835
Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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Dude, I'm so with you there. But I love (and hate) both "styles" of products for different reasons.
I love the new cars (and other equipment) with all the bells and whistles. I like all the new features. A lot of this "automated world" is what I've been working on for my whole career, so I'm definitely a fan. I do voice my opinion though - which is that we should be careful depending on updates to install bugfixes and features. But really, everyone in the industry knows that. We trade-off speed to implement for the certainty offered by extra Q/A time. Nobody wants to push out a brick.
So but that's also why I love the old stuff. Not just for nostalgia, although that's a big part of it. I also love the simplicity. And really, the reliability.
That's a two-way street though. The old stuff may last longer in some ways - being made to be repaired rather than replaced - but it also often has to be rebuilt more often. My cool old cars are lucky to get 100,000 miles, and by then, they're loose and sloppy. Harleys made before the Evolution motor in the 1980s wouldn't last 10,000 miles before they needed a rebuild. New cars easily exceed 300,000 miles and new Harleys just never wear out.
Another thing I love about the old stuff is - since I grew up with a high-tech mindset - it was easier for me to fathom a computer-controlled device than one that was pneumatically, hydraulically or mechanically controlled. So I was fascinated to see how things worked prior to the micro-controller days. Some of the things designed prior to the 1960s are ingenious.
We went to the moon without micro-controllers.
And nobody could "hack" into your stuff back then.
When you picked up the telephone, it always worked. Even if there was no power and nothing else worked. The phone did.
Anyway, I definitely hear you. Some new stuff has cool features and some is actually more reliable or long-lasting. But a ton of our new stuff is not made to last. It's just cheaply made junk.
And even if the new stuff is rock-solid, reliable and packed with really cool Jetson-family features, sometimes it's nice to have an old-school, pre-computer-era, built-like-a-tank "Made in USA" product.
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