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A recent story on the BBC posed a question to its readers. If it ain't broke: You share your oldest working gadgets. Folks wrote in with their favorite, longest-lasting devices.
Besides being curious about the latest tech devices and advancements, I've noticed our community also seems to have a number of thrifty folk who thrive on getting the most out of their gadgets.
I'll count myself among those in that category. I'll start with a Sharp EL-510S solar-powered, scientific calculator from the early 1980s. I also have a JVC stereo receiver from the mid 1980s that is still going strong. The computer I am currently using is a Dell Latitude Core 2 Duo from about 2009.
So how well has your stuff held up? What was been your best acquisition for long-term durability?
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday June 10 2020, @04:15AM (1 child)
"but you cannot deny that modern equipment is, on the whole, flimsier"
In many areas, yes I can. It's not across the board, but few things are. But, when I was a kid in the 60s, it was doing very well to get 100,000 miles out of a new car. On average the amount of miles/lifetime of cars has increased greatly. The ability to withstand accidents and not kill the passengers is utterly amazing compared to those old "heavy Chevies". I know. I had friends die in high school (Names: Brett K., Kenny W., Tom M. for example just off the top of my head) in them from impacts that would be walked away from or minor hospitalization today.
Another area where things are massively more reliable is electronics. Not only did the move away from tubes to transistors greatly increase reliability, but the improvements in the manufacture and processing made transistors themselves have orders of magnitude lower MTBF. It had to be so in order for our modern systems with component counts in the billions to not fail instantly out of the box.
Even rotational systems. The better tolerances in many bearings mean they last longer and run cooler. And though I dislike many of the needless applications brushless DC motors are sometimes put to, I can't deny the greater reliability due to not having carbon brushes, nor the massively improved efficiency of them. Again, that's an area I work on daily.
Yes, there is often less mass in gadgets. At least partly, that is due to consumer demand for thin small electronic devices. The thing you miss is that you couldn't have made the items that small and light without those same CAD systems and not have them fail very quickly from the repeated stresses.
Batteries: Oh, heavens. The improvements in rechargeable batteries is night and day. Bulky memory laden NiCads would have meant your gadgets would have had to have major league more structural strength just to deal with the size and weight of them. And the lifetime of them? Again, night and day.
It's not just reliability, there are many things you just could not have made. Ear buds. Without superstrong magnets, you can't get the small size and efficiency needed for battery powered music usage in ear. Forget flimsiness, you'd have had to make it large and bulky just to accommodate the components.
Is it all good news? No. Of course not. Yes if you have the ability to reduce the cost by reducing the amount of material used until it just barely doesn't fail there are a lot of companies that will push that too far and you'll end up with flimsy crap. But, we had lots of flimsy crap then too. Believe me, I had to work with it and repair it.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 10 2020, @10:14AM
They demand it now, but I think that's mainly because Apple's marketing teams trained them to like it. If they started training people to prefer robustness, ergonomics and a sense of build quality, to see a bit of weight to a device as a positive thing, the demand would change. There are few corporations that would do that now though, because thinner and lighter means fewer materials means higher profit margins.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?