hams on classiccmp

[Jim Battle]

Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> On Monday 19 January 2009 03:02:03 pm Tony Duell wrote:
>>>> That depends, a lot, on the PSU design. Certainly SMPSUs can do some
>>>> very odd things if a capacitor goes open-circuit or just high ESR. How
>>>> much damage that does to the rest of the PSU or worse the rest of the
>>>> machine depends on the design.
>>> Do you think that the designers of this stuff have learned which
>>> approaches they might want to stay away from?  :-)
>> Alas my expeerience suggests the reverse. Back when computers were
>> expensive, and chips were expensive, the manufacutrers took the trouble
>> to put all sorts of protectinon in their machines to protect said
>> expensive decices in the event of a failure. Now they don't bother.
> 
> I would suspect that a younger crop of engineers coming up might have some 
> bearing on this too.  :-)

Roy, I disagree.  Your opinion (smiley and all) sounds like the "Why, we 
had to walk uphill to school through snowstorms, both ways!  Today's 
kids are wimps!"

There have always been both brilliant and stupid engineers, and 
everything in between.  People today are not more stupid than those of 
40 years ago.  The problems that need to be solved have changed, and so 
have peoples' specializations.

Tony has it right.  The market demands low prices and doesn't demand 
ruggedness, so that is what gets built.