Text 5730, 66 rader
Skriven 2007-12-19 02:40:26 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
     Kommentar till en text av BOB KLAHN (1:123/140)
Ärende: resident  Can date.
===========================
HI Bob,
BOB KLAHN wrote in a message to RICHARD WEBB:

BK>>  We have replaced most of our indicator lights with computer
BK>> displays. They are actually PC compatible computers, running  DOS. I
BK>> see no advantage, and a lot of disadvantages, to the new  displays.
BK>> The indicator lights told me as much real info, and  these displays
BK>> are exceedingly more expensive to replace.

 RW> THat's not surprising.  They showed the bean counters off
 RW> the shelf buy 'em at Office depot computers, with some
 RW> sensing apparatus and other gear could replace that old

BK>  These are not off the shelf computers. They are very expensive 
BK> industrial ruggedized computers. That doesn't mean the insides  are
BK> not off the shelf boards. The last one I took apart was a  486, all
BK> familiar stuff. That was an old one. The new ones are  nicer
BK> looking, but not all that more advanced.

YEp, the cases and possibly power supplies and other components are a bit
beefier to "ruggedize" them. NOw if we were talking transceivers I"d agree with
that.  My old motorolla fire dept ht is much more rugged than my KEnwood ham
HT.


 BK> Our inspection cameras were running on a custom component system
 BK> that was very limited in what it did, but did it very fast and
 BK>> effectively. That got thrown out and a new system put it. This one
 BK> is
 BK>> a dual pentium system running a camera system, and doing  it very
 BK> badly. It is very static sensitive, which ain't good  with metal
 BK>> products going down a plastic conveyor, at high speed.

 RW> THe old systems were designed to do one job, do it reliably
 RW> with a minimum of hassle once designed installed and
 RW> tested. YOur new camera management system has all the
 RW> operating system overhead and all the goodies.  THere's

BK>  Which is another of my objections.


YEp, one size fits all.  I used to have, in fact this machine used to be my
studio automation machine using midi. Midi as an automation control for music
mixing is much slower under flavors of windows or other multitasking
environments than it waws on this machine. YEt it was optimized to perform that
one task, and do it well.

 RW> probably stuff running from bootup on that system that you
 RW> would never use with it and will never need. IN the old

BK>  And don't even know it's there.

THat's part of the deal too, you'd never know it.

 RW> days you could find it in autoexec.bat or config.sys easy
 RW> with a text editor.  These days futzing with the registry
 RW> you might break it so that it'll never run again <g>.

BK>  Oh yeah. Which is always in mind when working on this stuff. 

THat's for sure, and they don't give you a floppy drive either <hrrumph>.

Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Radio REscue net operations BBS       (1:116/901)