Planned Obsolescence

[geoffers]

"...Last used it before I went to Saudi in 1996, didn't take it with me because they are a bit funny with photographs, and such a small odd camera I'd probably have been arrested as a spy..."

 

Felt the same in my time in Saudi in the mid-80s. Have no photo memories whatsoever. Much more relaxed in Bahrain though.

[APOLLO]

1 hour ago, geoffers said:

"...I am in my mid 50s, and we never touched slide rules at school..."

 

Never used a slide rule at school but used log tables. However, in my professional career as a meteorologist, we used a meteorological slide rule to work out dewpoints and vapour pressures when doing weather observations.  I still have one. They were discarded when semi-automatic observation stations were introduced and all worked out automatically.

 

 

Interesting re the Met slide rule.

 

For me it was log tables at school, a Thirty Bob Faber Castell slide rule for my ONC Mech Eng (couldn't afford a posh British Thornton", they were a Fiver, a weeks wage back then !!) and one of the very first electronic calculators for HNC Gas Engineering - Progress !!

 

 

Part of my ONC was steam engines & turbines. The mechanical bit was easy, the computations utilising the dreaded steam tables did my head in !!   Steam is a VERY complicated substance.

 

 

 

Table 8. Properties for coexisting phases: viscosity, thermal, conductivity, Prandtl number, dielectric constant, surface tension

 

Table 9. Thermal expansion coefficient β = (1/ν)(∂ν/∂T)p of liquid water as a function of pressure and temperature. (β in 10−3/K.)

 

https://www.thermopedia.com/content/1150/

 

After that lot HNC Gas engineering was a doddle. (I'd never make a Nigel Gresley !!!!)

 

For sizing gas mains we used one of these, A mears calculator. Mears made many such calculators for lots of applications. A doddle to use. The one shown below is a liquid flow model.

 

 

Some bright spark at work got a small programmable calculator to do the calcs. A pain in the bum, I stuck with my Mears and still have it. Precision not required as we allways went up a pipe diameter or two to accomodate load growth !! (Such forward thinking not allowed these days !!).

 

Happy days. (most of 'em) !!

 

Brit15

 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by APOLLO
typo

[melmerby]

I never used a slide rule at school, again it was log tables.

Slide rules at college & work, including a spiral slide rule.

[melmerby]

On 16/11/2023 at 11:11, 30801 said:

 the case has a coating of rubbery soft-touch plastic that has degraded into a disgusting sticky slimy mess.

I've got a Maycom air band scanner that has the same problem.

[BoD]

I have got built in obsolescence. It’s called dying

 

However, I hope that, like vinyl records, I come back into vogue a few years down the line.

Edited November 17, 2023 by BoD

[melmerby]

My Blu-ray recorder/set top box has a chrome browser that can't be updated*, so won't work with many on line streaming apps, which require a more up to date version.

 

* lets say in the normal way, as I know of people that have completely reconfigured some set top boxes to do things the manufacturer never thought of!

It's because most use a Linux based system. Effectively a PC with a EEProm based operating system.

 

2 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Part of my ONC was steam engines & turbines. The mechanical bit was easy, the computations utilising the dreaded steam tables did my head in !!   Steam is a VERY complicated substance.

I did a microwave radio course at Aston Uni that had maths that I could even comprehend.

There was a group of us from PO/BT, most of us abandoned it before the end.

I would appear you needed HNC maths or higher, which we didn't have and wasn't mentioned in the prospectus

[Steamport Southport]

I think they still had log books somewhere in the back of dusty cupboards. I only vaguely remember using them.

 

ISTR we were the first year in our school that it was compulsory to use calculators like this one. Must have been about 1981.

 

 

 

If you didn't have one you had to use one of the manky school ones!

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

ISTR we were the first year in our school that it was compulsory to use calculators like this one. Must have been about 1981.

 

 

 

We were supposed to have a similar Casio. I asked my dad for one and he said I could use his old one instead.

It was one of these:

[Suzie]

14 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

We were supposed to have a similar Casio. I asked my dad for one and he said I could use his old one instead.

It was one of these:

I have a Commodore 9190 somewhere which is a higher spec model, and I think it is worth about three times what it cost new - or perhaps not since it cost about a week's wages!

[Michael Hodgson]

38 minutes ago, Suzie said:

I have a Commodore 9190 somewhere which is a higher spec model, and I think it is worth about three times what it cost new - or perhaps not since it cost about a week's wages!

Calculators did exist when I was at school.  They tended to look something like this...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295663187775

I found it easier to use the log tables !

 

[Steamport Southport]

40 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Calculators did exist when I was at school.  They tended to look something like this...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295663187775

I found it easier to use the log tables !

 

 

Nah, that's a secret German coding device from WWII.  🤐

 

 

[Hroth]

My first pocket calculator could be persuaded to divide by zero. It was like watching a dog chase its tail....

 

I later got a Casio P50 Programmable calculator, 25 steps could be recorded!

It was very similar to the one illustrated by 30801

 

4 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

We were supposed to have a similar Casio. I asked my dad for one and he said I could use his old one instead.

It was one of these:

 

I've still got it (and its instruction booklet), somewhere.

 

[kevinlms]

15 hours ago, uax6 said:

 

Good old System X still allows loop-dis dialling, so until our local unit goes I'll be ok. Then I'll dig out one of my Signalling Unit 43A's and put it into the line to BT, but I'll still need a 'pocket dialler' to get Octothorpe and Star....

 

Andy G

Traditional exchanges are virtually dead in Australia. The only places that can still keep them are in what are called 'Fixed Wireless' - actually mobile towers, but data only and satellite. Both of which are considered as unreliable for voice communication - due to the way they transmit data, in blocks.

Ironic that they don't work well for voice, despite technically being much faster.

 

Australia in later years used mostly AXE (from Ericcson in Sweden - but significantly improved on in Australia, because Australia worked their equipment much harder, due to distances, than it ever did at home) and System 12 Siemens.

 

I'm not an exchange man, but this might be of interest to you. It does run out of steam for the last decade.

 

http://schoolpa.com.au/sxs/introductiontoaussieexchanges.pdf

[melmerby]

4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Traditional exchanges are virtually dead in Australia.

UK exchanges are on a countdown to extinction as the country switches to VOIP .

 

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by melmerby

[spamcan61]

33 minutes ago, melmerby said:

UK exchanges are on a countdown to extinction as the country switches to VOIP .

 

 

 

 

Good luck making a phone call when there's a power cut!

 

I notice round my way they're stringing fibre optic up on telegraph poles (routing it through the branches of trees.. ) I assume this is in readiness for the big switchover.

Edited November 18, 2023 by spamcan61

[Hroth]

3 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Good luck making a phone call when there's a power cut!

 

I notice round my way they're stringing fibre optic up on telegraph poles (routing it through the branches of trees.. ) I assume this is in readiness for the big switchover.

 

VOIP customers are advised to have either a UPS or a mobile phone as backup.  The UPS they offer (as an extra) is rated for four hours, after that, you're on your own.  And if its a more than severely local power cut, either the other end of the fibre will be affected too or the local cell towers will be out.

 

Then there's the places with little or no cell coverage in the first place...

 

[uax6]

Yes the old 'universal service' of yore, is now a thing of the past thanks to the limpness of OFCOM.....

 

The storms of a couple of years back brought a brief halt to the full viop roll out, as there was a shortlived scandle about the fact no-one could call 999 from the voip areas, and that the mobile signal died 4 hours in with the loss of the mains supply and then the batteries dying. Interestingly this all died down and is forgotten about until the next time... Exchanges have back-up gennys, but base stations don't neither do the fibre cabinets, only batteries.

 

So make sure you supply some sort of standby that can last 4 hours to your fibre line!

 

Andy G

[Michael Hodgson]

29 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Good luck making a phone call when there's a power cut!

 

They want you to stop making phone calls during a power cut. 

When you're up a telegraph pole holding on with one hand and holding the wire with the other and the pliers between your teeth trying to fix it, you don't want to be swamped by calls complaining that the power's gone off.

[spamcan61]

9 minutes ago, uax6 said:

Yes the old 'universal service' of yore, is now a thing of the past thanks to the limpness of OFCOM.....

 

The storms of a couple of years back brought a brief halt to the full viop roll out, as there was a shortlived scandle about the fact no-one could call 999 from the voip areas, and that the mobile signal died 4 hours in with the loss of the mains supply and then the batteries dying. Interestingly this all died down and is forgotten about until the next time... Exchanges have back-up gennys, but base stations don't neither do the fibre cabinets, only batteries.

 

So make sure you supply some sort of standby that can last 4 hours to your fibre line!

 

Andy G

I'm surprised there's any battery backup at all for the routers in the green cabinets (I assume), the mobile phone network operators I used to deal with 20 years ago were trying to do away with battery backup even then. It's expensive to install and an expensive pain to maintain. Lessons will not be learned, as usual.

 

Backup gennys for the mobile networks were tried in some countries, but people kept nicking the diesel.

Edited November 18, 2023 by spamcan61

[spamcan61]

1 minute ago, Michael Hodgson said:

They want you to stop making phone calls during a power cut. 

 

Rather important to be able to summon the emergency services at times, I'm thinking more disaster level than just a power cut, where I take your point 

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, uax6 said:

Yes the old 'universal service' of yore, is now a thing of the past thanks to the limpness of OFCOM.....

 

The storms of a couple of years back brought a brief halt to the full viop roll out, as there was a shortlived scandle about the fact no-one could call 999 from the voip areas, and that the mobile signal died 4 hours in with the loss of the mains supply and then the batteries dying. Interestingly this all died down and is forgotten about until the next time... Exchanges have back-up gennys, but base stations don't neither do the fibre cabinets, only batteries.

 

So make sure you supply some sort of standby that can last 4 hours to your fibre line!

 

Andy G

But old phones were NOT infallible!  Many 1000s were employed keeping the phones cables in the ground/overhead working.

 

There was a complete outage in Australia last week from our 2nd largest network, with mobile and internet services gone. It took about 10 hours to get anything going and about 18 hours for full restoration.

Yes, that effected 000 (our 999) calls, mobiles are fine if within range of a competitors tower, because 000 calls can use any carrier - even without a SIM card.

 

Different story for VoIP lines as no service at all. Our Myki ticketing system was out completely, but they did have a backup on another provider in place.

 

Having a UPS won't help if the backbone is down.

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

 

Backup gennys for the mobile networks were tried in some countries, but people kept nicking the diesel.

Despite its convict history, Australia doesn't have a problem with people nicking diesel fuel from emergency services. Bushfires kind of make the vast majority of people realise that some things are critical, the menace can be that fires burn the power infrastructure, which needs replacing and is not a couple of days fix - sometimes weeks! Solar panels while good, can be adversely affected by dense smoke!

 

Although it has been known for conspiracy theorists, to set fire to 5G mobile towers!

[Bernard Lamb]

18 hours ago, melmerby said:

I never used a slide rule at school, again it was log tables.

Slide rules at college & work, including a spiral slide rule.

Otis King?

They were very good and being not much longer than a pen, fitted easily into a jacket packet.

Bernard

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Otis King?

They were very good and being not much longer than a pen, fitted easily into a jacket packet.

Bernard

Nope

Ancient, about a foot long and 4" - 5" diameter

One of these:

 

The scale is about 25x the length of normal straight ones.

It was kept in a box, when not in use.

The calculations were for a Buckton Tensile tester, which was a massive piece of engineering to stretch to breaking point or crush various materials.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

I've seen accounting done pretty fast using one of these