[HECnet] No connectivity to arsgea 4

[Johnny Billquist]

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been replaced by now.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:
>> 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
> 

-- 
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