In the mid 80's I was the head of the CS student chapter. We ran the computer rooms for the science faculty. We hsd a room with about 20 Mac 128k. I do not know where Apple sourced their capacitors from, but these were not A-tier. A Mac going up in a puff of white smoke was a weekly occurence. We had a few in reserve just to cycle them in while they were out to Apple for repair.
P.S. still my favourite Mac of all time was the IIcx. That one coupled with the 'full page display' was a dream.
This shouldn't be allowed at all: if the product was bad all along, they should be required to fix it, and shouldn't be able to say "well, it's old, so you should just trash it", which means they don't suffer any penalty whatsoever.
I don't think that's a reasonable expectation in general, and certainly not in this case. The affected TVs were all at least 20 years old - that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these. Nor is it clear what Sony could reasonably have done to repair them; even by 2010, a lot of the parts used in CRT TVs were out of production and unavailable.
Maybe you're too young to remember, but people used to keep TVs for much longer periods before HDTV and flat panels came out.
Also, these TVs are apparently fire hazards. It doesn't matter that they're 20 years old (at the point of the "recall" in 2010).
I doubt the parts necessary to fix them were out of production; you can get parts for truly ancient electronics still. Things like capacitors don't become obsolete. The recall doesn't specify exactly which component is problematic, but says it's age-related, which usually points to capacitors.
> that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these
A modern TV may have an expected lifespan of five years. TVs from several decades ago had lifespans of... several decades. Quality has plummeted in that market.
What are you talking about? Capacitor technology hasn't changed substantially in decades, and it's just as possible to change caps with a soldering iron now as it was 20 years ago. I have no idea what you mean by "serialized".
not capacitors, but more advanced components, like the camera, have serial numbers embedded in them, and the serial number needs to match, otherwise it won't accept the component. Components off a stolen device are put on a list and won't work in admirer another phone, so stolen phones aren't even worth anything for parts, driving down the market for stolen phones.
Typical Amiga fanboyism and Apple envy, if a Mac does something they have to prove the Amiga outdid it. “Only one model with a reverse polarity capacitor? With Commodore it was a systematic issue!”
P.S. still my favourite Mac of all time was the IIcx. That one coupled with the 'full page display' was a dream.
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