22 Jan
2021
22 Jan
'21
6:03 p.m.
Well, I know of PDP-11 systems out in production who have been running
since the early 80s. The only thing that fails is the damn RD53...
Replaced those about 20 years ago now. The rest of the machine was
running just fine. At that at a steel mill, so not exactly a friendly
environment. Last I heard, things were still running, but it might have
been replaced by now. But anyway, it's the moving parts that cause
problems. The rest usually just keep running...
Johnny
On 2021-01-22 17:53, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 1/22/21 11:41 AM, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
10 years used to be nearly unheard of for retail
machines with moving
parts.? When nothing is moving, then supposedly there is nothing to
burn out.
? I don't know who told you that, but he/she knows jack point squat
about electronics.
? Materials migration and diffusion across junctions causes
semiconductor components to fail, tin whiskers cause shorts, some types
of capacitors dry out and/or have their electrolyte deteriorate or
crystallize, resistors drift, heat/cool cycles cause PCB flexure
resulting in cracked solder joints, corrosion in air creeps into
connector pin interfaces and forces pins apart, the list goes on and on
and on.
? To be fair, some of the above-listed failure modes do in fact involve
things moving, though imperceptibly so, my point stands.
????????????? -Dave