[jeallen01]

@D1N0
Do I see a Canon P&S on the LHS of the photo? If so, that could be "quite good" - I've got one that I still keep for "basic info" records, although I less than enamoured with the ergonomics after using Pentax DSLR's

[lesmore49]

On a similar vein, many years ago I was taken a train from Birmingham to Edinburgh, and as you do on long train journeys got chatting to the bloke opposite me. He'd worked for Philips, and for a time had been on the team that developed the Laser Disc, which was basically a 12 inch CD for video. It was a great concept for the time, the picture quality was fantastic but was let down by the fact you had to buy the pre-recorded disk rather than record your own. In the end it stopped production as the new VHS tapes became the preferred medium, but he added that in the time the system was in operation they never had a systemic failure. Any reported failures were down to individual components, but the design itself did not incur any failures.

I've worked with engineers over the years who do nothing but monitor failure trends and have sat in on the sort of meetings they have around systems failures and their potential impacts. in the right business models techniques like FRACAS (Failure reporting, analysis and corrective action system) will identify trends in failures and what caused them, then identify what to do to stop it happening.

Design changes, more frequent maintenance and additional safeguards are all options, but cost money. With some many things these days the cheaper option is often to let it fail and pay out if someone complains. See the Ford Pinto saga for a classic example.

Back in the '50's and early '60's times were simpler, at least out here in Western Canada. We had a couple of corner 'fix-it' shops that for a reasonable price you could take your radio, toaster, many electric devices or other non electric common household items and get them repaired.


I haven't seen one of those places for decades. One good reason is the complexity of much modern equipment , particularly the electronic aspects. I do recall going down to the local pharmacies (chemist shops in the UK) in the late '50's , early '60's with tubes from either our TV or radio. They had a machine there... a tube tester....which was a plug in-plug out deal...think a red light went on when the tube was a dud, green light when all was working.

They also had tubes that you could buy to replace the tube that was gonzo. But then electronics came I and put a stop to the repair it yourself for most of us.

I think modern electronics provide much better equipment than we had 60 + years ago.

I'm not calling for a return to yore, more of just a reflection on how life changes.

[Marcus Rowland]

On a similar vein, many years ago I was taken a train from Birmingham to Edinburgh, and as you do on long train journeys got chatting to the bloke opposite me. He'd worked for Philips, and for a time had been on the team that developed the Laser Disc, which was basically a 12 inch CD for video. It was a great concept for the time, the picture quality was fantastic but was let down by the fact you had to buy the pre-recorded disk rather than record your own. In the end it stopped production as the new VHS tapes became the preferred medium, but he added that in the time the system was in operation they never had a systemic failure. Any reported failures were down to individual components, but the design itself did not incur any failures.

I've worked with engineers over the years who do nothing but monitor failure trends and have sat in on the sort of meetings they have around systems failures and their potential impacts. in the right business models techniques like FRACAS (Failure reporting, analysis and corrective action system) will identify trends in failures and what caused them, then identify what to do to stop it happening.

Design changes, more frequent maintenance and additional safeguards are all options, but cost money. With some many things these days the cheaper option is often to let it fail and pay out if someone complains. See the Ford Pinto saga for a classic example.

I still have two laserdisc players and about a hundred and fifty disks, though it's probably a year or more since I last played one. The quality was better than VHS or Betamax, but things like the fairly high price of players and the limited play time and size and weight of the disks meant that people were slow to adopt, which meant relatively small production runs for disks, and correspondingly high prices. Eventually DVD came along and took over the market VERY fast - over about eighteen months the price of disks dropped from twenty-odd pounds to a couple of pounds as distributors tried to get rid of their old stock. I was a very late adopter, bought my first player and disks very cheaply from someone that was selling off his gear and didn't quite realise why things were so cheap at first. Laserdisc purists still maintain that image quality is better because they're analog and there is less compression, but that's mostly the same sort of people who want to buy LPs rather than CDs. When blu-ray and the really high definition formats came along that argument was pretty much shot out of the water. A better reason is that a lot of stuff, e.g. most Japanese anime, was very slow to make it to DVD and laserdisc was pretty much the only game in town.

I'd agree that the players are incredibly robust - they have to be, because you have a 12" disc spinning at about 300 RPM that weighs about three times as much as an LP. The trouble is that you really can't get spares now, and things like the drive belts and friction pads used to hold the disks firmly are almost impossible to find.

[Liney]

Back in the '50's and early '60's times were simpler, at least out here in Western Canada. We had a couple of corner 'fix-it' shops that for a reasonable price you could take your radio, toaster, many electric devices or other non electric common household items and get them repaired.


I haven't seen one of those places for decades. One good reason is the complexity of much modern equipment , particularly the electronic aspects. I do recall going down to the local pharmacies (chemist shops in the UK) in the late '50's , early '60's with tubes from either our TV or radio. They had a machine there... a tube tester....which was a plug in-plug out deal...think a red light went on when the tube was a dud, green light when all was working.

They also had tubes that you could buy to replace the tube that was gonzo. But then electronics came I and put a stop to the repair it yourself for most of us.

I think modern electronics provide much better equipment than we had 60 + years ago.

I'm not calling for a return to yore, more of just a reflection on how life changes.

Oh the joys of thermionic valves! We were taught on a couple of radio sets that still ran on valves and the pre-start check was to power on and wait five minutes. Then you ran your finger along the top of the valves and if any were cold you powered down and changed them out before proceeding.

The problem with the modern equipment in part is because of the dependance on microchip technology. Circuit boards have become so compact that you can't repair them, so it's a case of throw it away and get a new one. Again during training we were taught to carry out repairs on circuit boards, but at that point (early 80's) the miniaturisation had not reached the point of multi-layer boards and circuit tracks the thickness of a human hair. Our repairs were carried out by scraping back the varnish layer, soldering a thin gauge wire across the break, and revarnishing the board.

Back in those days there was a real fear of a Nuclear war, and a lot of time and effort went into designing electronics that were "hardened" and could withstand an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from a nuclear explosion, especially for military use equipment. Nowadays, well we don't need a nuclear explosion but a decent sized solar flare hitting the atmosphere would damage equipment that is not protected. One big juicy solar corona and parts of the world could be dark and quiet until a lot of things get replaced.

[tim60]

Another challenge to servicing current electronics is that many of the components are OEM specific and only sold to or through the OEM. Even service people cannot source parts so they have no business.

[lesmore49]

Oh the joys of thermionic valves! We were taught on a couple of radio sets that still ran on valves and the pre-start check was to power on and wait five minutes. Then you ran your finger along the top of the valves and if any were cold you powered down and changed them out before proceeding.

The problem with the modern equipment in part is because of the dependance on microchip technology. Circuit boards have become so compact that you can't repair them, so it's a case of throw it away and get a new one. Again during training we were taught to carry out repairs on circuit boards, but at that point (early 80's) the miniaturisation had not reached the point of multi-layer boards and circuit tracks the thickness of a human hair. Our repairs were carried out by scraping back the varnish layer, soldering a thin gauge wire across the break, and revarnishing the board.

Back in those days there was a real fear of a Nuclear war, and a lot of time and effort went into designing electronics that were "hardened" and could withstand an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from a nuclear explosion, especially for military use equipment. Nowadays, well we don't need a nuclear explosion but a decent sized solar flare hitting the atmosphere would damage equipment that is not protected. One big juicy solar corona and parts of the world could be dark and quiet until a lot of things get replaced.

I do agree that many products are not as robustly constructed as in the past...say 50-60 years ago. Cars for example...American ...I'm familiar with, say full size '50's, '60's Chevy's Fords, etc. were body on frame, quite heavily built....thicker gauge metal in body panels...cast iron engine blocks. Many cars, trucks, motorcycles were designed back then, without the aid of much in the way of computers and I think the required strength of an American car part was determined by adding enough 'beef' to a part to make sure it stood up. And domestic cars of the past era could take a beating, as can many modern vehicles.

Modern cars generally have thinner gauge sheet metal, aluminum blocks, strength required is determined by computer programming after engineering variables are fed into programs.

As with many things there are pros and cons about whether older or newer vehicles are 'better'.

Modern cars, trucks, motorcycles, IMO, are generally more reliable and durable than vehicles of over half a century ago....but have different things go wrong. The mechanical bits of a modern vehicle may last longer, be more reliable and durable, but breakdown in many cases is due to electronic components suffering from the inevitable, noise, vibration and heat generated by hard working vehicles... and in some climes (prairie and northern Canada for example) extreme cold which can lead to causing parts to become brittle and more subject to fracture, etc.

Makes me think of another point. Back in '74 I visited the UK and rented a car, a newish Morris Marina and in '77 went again, this time renting a newish Ford Escort. Both cars were fine, except the Morris drank about a quart of oil a day ) At the time I had a '73 Toyota Corolla and Chevy Chevette ( similar to a Vauxhall) ...both of which were factory prepared for the western Canadian (prairies) market...which where I live has long ( 5.5 month min.) winters where there is lots of snow and ice...and periods of temps that go down to -30 and colder for some periods.

First time I popped the hood of the British market rentals, I noticed significant differences...much smaller batteries and no block heaters in the British cars.. For those unfamiliar with block heaters, these are engine heaters installed into either engine block or water to heat block during colder than -20 degree temps and pretty well come standard on Canadian market cars on the prairies. You plug the block heater into an electrical outlet and this keeps the engine warmish. Otherwise without a block heater you may have difficulty turning over an engine that has been sitting for a couple of days in -30 or worse. temps.

I mention this last point as I wonder, if in some electronic components are manufactured to a more robust standard for particular markets, where climates may be harder on parts ?

I think I know the answer.....of course not !

[timb64]

Ah the Morris Minor,far from British Leyland’s finest hour!

A contemporary view:

Morris Marina - the worst cars ever | Auto Express

[jeallen01]

Ah the Morris Minor,far from British Leyland’s finest hour!

A contemporary view:

Morris Marina - the worst cars ever | Auto Express

To be "quite clear", it was No 7 on that list and below the Chrysler PT Cruiser Converible (I wonder where that "apology" for a vehicle was inspired by??) (and below several other BL cars as well )

[timb64]

To be "quite clear", it was No 7 on that list and below the Chrysler PT Cruiser Converible (I wonder where that "apology" for a vehicle was inspired by??) (and below several other BL cars as well )

Yes,the article title was missing a question mark.

[lesmore49]

Ah the Morris Minor,far from British Leyland’s finest hour!

A contemporary view:

Morris Marina - the worst cars ever | Auto Express

At the time in Canada, I had a '73 Toyota Corolla ...stripper model, no carpeting, no radio, only the larger engine (1600cc 'hemi') 4 speed manual, no radio , 13 inch wheels and front disc brakes rather than standard 12 inch wheels and front drum brakes and it wasn't a bad car....except it rusted through within 2 years, wouldn't start in rain and unless the block heater was plugged in (dealer could never figure out) and had a notchy gear shift and blew head gaskets. It went ok though, fair acceleration for that era. My first new car.

I liked the Marina body style, comfort....but it didn't have enough get up and go for me. Think it had a 1.3 liter 4 banger and I couldn't believe the oil consumption. It was a fairly low mileage ...new car and I kept hoping the rings would settle in, not sure what the issue was. I called the rental agency and they asked me to check the engine oil level daily, which I did and add oil as needed and to keep receipts for oil purchase and they would reimburse. I bought a couple of quarts every couple of days...no leaks, just blue smoke as sometimes I wasn't near a place where I could buy oil.

I had wanted to rent a Mini Cooper 1275 cc (1.3) but couldn't find one for rent, so the Marina. Unfortunate experience and I had originally decided to rent an Austin or Morris, as in the early '50's my family had three new Austins in a row, and they weren't bad cars at all.

[aslyfox]

well if life isn't complicated enough

just arranged to take possession on June 3 or thereabouts

a female German Shepard puppy which was born on April 15

we drove back up to see the puppy today

here is a photo

name Is pending but " Saxon " is a leading contender along with " Freyja " or " Lady " or " Deutsche. " but no final decision yet

--------------

the owners had 8 puppies, 4 male and 4 females, we were the first to buy the day the ad was first listed and they sold all of them within 24 hours

one person wanted to buy all 4 females.

[jeallen01]

..one person wanted to buy all 4 females.

Obviously for a puppy farm!

[aslyfox]

Obviously for a puppy farm!

don't know

he didn't get what he wanted I know that he got one

[Astro-Baby]

My postie asked me why I send and receive so much stuff so I told him about my serious addiction to old cameras. He said ‘oh...would you like some, I have a bag of stuff in the loft at home and no use for it’ so I said ‘no....best to put it in the bin’ seriously I said ‘ok..if your giving it away I will have it’ and hola....one big bag a few days later.

In the bag has been...
Yashica Auto Electro 35 GT.....suffering ‘pad of death’ but may be fixable.Looks like it will be hellish.
Minolta XG-M...in a sorry state but fixable.....just spent the last 6 hours doing just that.
Minolta 50mm f1.7...shabby but repairable
Pile of Russian and East German stuff mostly broken but some repairable stuff. Had a look earlier at a repair guide for the Helios 44 lens.....damn its complicated surpisingly, thought the Russi ans always did it simple my oh my what fun that will be to try and fix....no wonder its so heavy its got the workings of a diesel engine inside.

Maybe one day I might actually get to take some pictures but if someone hands me a broken camera the OCD takes over and I feel a compulsion to fix the damn thing.

[jeallen01]

don't know

he didn't get what he wanted I know that he got one

Why else would he want FOUR female puppies unless to use them for large-scale breeding????