Re: Vernier Universal Interface

[Byron Winmill <bwinmill@sdf.lonestar.org>]

Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
> If companies were mandated to support every shipped product for, say,
> 25 years, we'd have lots of successful companies going out of business

But you're talking about one extreme, and the industry is taking another.  
It would be nice if there was some sort of middle ground, say 10 years.  
As with anything else, that support may come at a cost.  Granted, it is 
easy to see why many people would bypass that option with the price of 
support frequently being comparable to the cost of replacement.

> Though it's certainly not a mass market, there were a lot of Apple II's
> used in college labs (and some industrial labs, too) to control complex
> experiments.  Vernier made a good market in that area.

I've been in quite a few university labs and have seen some quite obsolete 
equipment, including computers.  Quite frequently the reason is quite 
simple: even an XT can handle a few samples a second, and there is no 
reason to dump money on fancy equipment if you only need a few samples a 
second.  Yet I still have trouble "seeing" Apple II's in university 
environments.  Perhaps it is that stigma of the Apple II being a hobbiest 
and (primary/secondar) school computer.  That being said, I have seen one 
that was in active use in a university lab (as of four years ago) -- but 
always regarded it as more of a deviation than the norm.

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