08-01-2017, 12:01 PM
(07-25-2017, 09:16 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: But much that is truly modern is reliable enough. I have a ten-year-old flat-screen TV that has never needed a repair. The design was apparently really, really good. I suspect that obsolescence is more likely to cause me to give it up than a mechanical breakdown.
Part of that is basic differences in technology. Vacuum tubes were just going to need replacement. If you have filaments throwing subatomic particles out into the wild, they will eventually burn out.
This isn't to say that several more decades refining designs didn't help.
I recently traded an old car (2004) for a new (2016). The salesman claimed that the total number of moving parts had gone from around 7,000 to 70,000. I suspect his method of counting 'moving' parts is creative and unusual, but the point is there. Design approaches are definitely shifting.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.