P3D Re: Film redesign

[michaelk@xxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Kersenbrock)]

> Pac Bell is installing a brand-new Lucent 5ESS switch on my exchange
> next month.  I'm willing to bet you that there are a significant number
> of lines of code in that switch devoted to handing pulse dialing, and
> that those lines of code were not written, debugged and tested for free,
> or even "next to nothing".  It isn't just a matter of "leaving"
> something existing in place.  And this cost accumulates with each new
> generation of equipment that is developed.

The pulse dialing decoding is probably done in the line card at the
remote whatcha-ma-call-its that probably has a T1-link back to the switch.
The switch probably never sees the twisted pair nor sees the pulse
dialing portion.  A line card should do the grungy stuff like that
(as well as the DTMF detection which is a lot more complicated than
pulse dialing).  The switch's processor isn't going to do the pulse
decoding unless the designers were really weird.  IMO anyway. :-)

As to the code, it was debugged fifty years ago and can be redone
from scratch with a 1-bit microprocessor developed by most any
grade school student nowdays.  :-)

> Technical improvement without unnecessary obsolescence is the name of
> the game.

But isn't the decision make of what "unnecessary" means usually
economic?

It's an old axiom, but true, that to know why things happen, "follow
the money".

> 
> >If the people who buy their goods don't think it's an improvement, then
> >why do they stop buying the old stuff and buy the new?  If nobody
> bought
> >APS and everybody bought 35mm, does one think that they'll phase out
> 35mm
> >and continue APS?
> 
> 
> Many don't see any difference because they never have enlargements made.
> For those consumers, APS is perfectly OK, until Kodak invents the "next
> new thing" and discontinues it.  Kodak is discontinuing their
> finest-grained, sharpest, most vibrant color print film.  Who knows what
> they'll kill next and for what hare-brained reason?


Exactly, and all those hundreds of millions of people who don't
care about the negatives and like the positives -- they wonder what
the other ten million are complaining about.  :-)

Mike K.

> 
>      -Greg W. (gjw@xxxxxxxxxx)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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