[Info-vax] Chinese Alpha?

[ChrisQ]

On 05/04/12 10:27, Paul Sture wrote:
> On Thu, 03 May 2012 12:50:38 -0400, David Froble wrote:
>
>> The problem isn't so simple.  Digital had a huge investment in people.
>> Just about every major city had an office for hardware support, and
>> software support.  At one time such was needed.  But over time the
>> entire thing became obsolete, at least in comparison with what the
>> competition was offering.  The cost of people also continued to rise.
>>
>> No longer do computer manufacturers (for the most part) have local
>> offices, and HW people who come out to fix problems with occiliscopes
>> and soldering irons.
>>
>> I don't have any details to back up my guesses, but I've got to think
>> that the cost of the computers helped to support the local support that
>> DEC provided.
>
> We had monthly Preventative Maintenance on our first PDP 11/34, performed
> by the DEC office in our neighbouring city.  We were very pleased when DEC
> decided to change that to once every 3 months, as not only was it a
> disruption to our work, but the system often failed a few hours after a
> PM, sometimes as soon as the engineer had driven off.
>

The industry has changed, in that there is no longer any need to repair down
to component level, nor is it possible. In the days of small scale 
integration
and leaded discrete components, the failed parts could be replaced after
debugging with a 'scope. System boards are much higher density and 
surface mount
technology measn that swapping the board / subassembly is the only way. The
service process has been deskilled by low hardware costs and the fact that a
high degree of knowledge and experience is required to debug hardware down
to component level = expensive. It's more cost effective to replace the 
board
or subassembly, than to spend hours trying to fix it, much as it grates my
instincts of thrift.

Local offices weren't just about servicing though, but also local lines of
communication back to the company. Intelligence gathering for future product
directions, customer attitudes, good will and more...

Regards,

Chris