K rig's longevity?
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I'm sure there are computer savvy wizs in the
Elecraft community - with the ability to "dis-assemble" the firmware in rigs like the K2 and K3. One would hope this is so, for the sake of the long time longevity of our firware. It would also require a unique close up and personal hardware knowledge of these rigs, and their chip sets. Heaven forbid - but should the corporate airplane go down in a hurricane, with all hands aboard - who's to keep the Elecraft firmware alive? Ditto, say a unfriendly takeover, by Yaseu, etc.? Major companies, are supposed to worry about such rare happenings, for the customers sake. PC CMOS BIOS is an example - which Phoenix Inc., did quite well at. I believe I have the example spelling right .... ? Fred, de N3CSY ____________________________________________________________________________________ Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight? Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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In a message dated 9/30/07 6:17:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[hidden email] writes: > [hidden email] wrote: > > > Will it be possible to keep a K2 working 35 years? I don't see why not, > given > > that almost all the parts are readily available, the documentation is wide > > > open and free, and expert assist is available from several sources. Plus > when > > Most of the documentation is closed, as, as you point out yourself, the > radio does a lot in software, and the software source isn't released; > not even the AuxBus protocol is documented. It's documented, just not publicly. That could always change. It's also the case that > > component substitution, including piggy backed surface mount parts, have > had to be made already. > > The impact of the closed software is that, even if you can get the PIC > chips, you won't be able to program them. Also, where the firmware has > restrictions for legal reasons, and these go away (e.g. the Thai > government permits use of additional amateur radio frequencies, or, on > my reading of the UK licence, and assuming the situation has arisen and > > Elecraft have actually complied, if a UK Novice gets a Full licence and > is therefore allowed to operate equipment that is not restricted, by > design, to authorised frequencies, the user may have trouble getting an > upgrade). > > ncidentally, making the software public domain is not a good idea, as > it will be ineffective in the UK, and most other countries, with the, > probable, exception of the USAb, and doesn't allow one to restrict > implied warranties. It's better to use a liberal and perpetual licence. > WHich could happen in the future. > The other issue is that Elecraft is a small company and we have > discovered, this week, that one of their founders is turning 50 and > another key technician learned algebra in the late 1950s, it seems to me > that a lot of the key personnel are reaching the point where they think > about retirement. Heck, I'm 53, and I was thinking about retirement 20+ years ago! As well as losing the product knowledge, founders of > > startup companies in that position often want to turn the value of the > company into cash to fund their pensions. To me, the K3 could well be > there in order to make the company sellable. My experience of > innovative startups, where the founders sell out, is poor. I've had to > leave my old ISP, because of the consequences of that. > Of course that could happen. But support of older products is an issue with *any* company nowadays. How many ham-rig manufacturers today give full support to rigs they made 20, 25, 30, 35 years ago? > From what I know of the hardware, I would be most worried about the K2 > headphone jack, as it is not particularly generic and a known weak > point. I'm also somewhat concerned about the relays. They are almost > > impossible for an individual to source and they have a limited life, and > the KAT2, in particular, hits them hard. > I didn't know they had a limited life - how many operations? What is the failure mode? --- It should be remembered that in most cases, the way old rigs are kept alive is a combination of: - replacing old parts with new equivalents (orange drop caps replacing old wax-and-paper caps), - custom-making new parts to replace the old (usually done to mechanical pieces) - finding old caches of parts (this is how I fixed a GE Fanuc Workmaster unit to program Series Six PLCs a few months ago) - cannibalism of parts-rigs to keep good ones working. 73 de Jim, N2EY ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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In reply to this post by Fred (FL)
Fred (FL) wrote:
> I'm sure there are computer savvy wizs in the > Elecraft community - with the ability to This is illegal in the USA and severely restricted in Europe. The copyright outlasts the company; it is just more difficult to work out who owns it. Also, one of the selling points of the PIC series is that you can prevent the program memory being read. As well as the copyright breach, any attempt to get round that in the USA would fall foul of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. > Heaven forbid - but should the corporate airplane > go down in a hurricane, with all hands aboard - > who's to keep the Elecraft firmware alive? Ditto, This is why I have already suggested that it be put in escrow (which is not the same as backup). Standard escrow arrangements don't protect against products being killed for marketing reasons, e.g. after a takeover, and only protect customers, not, for example, third party suppliers of replacement parts, so a standards escrow may not cover all concerns. > say a unfriendly takeover, by Yaseu, etc.? Major > companies, are supposed to worry about such > rare happenings, for the customers sake. That normally only happens in business to business environments, where the customer is aware of the possibility of escrow and has the market power to get it into the contract. Even then, normal arrangements don't protect well against takeovers done to get a competing product off the market. I'm a computer programmer, not a lawyer. -- David Woolley Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want. RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam, that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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In reply to this post by N2EY
[hidden email] wrote:
> It's documented, just not publicly. That could always change. There's no guarantee of any more than poorly commented source code and that is true of any actively maintained software, whether it comes from Elecraft or someone else. (It has been said that Microsoft wrote Wordpad because they lost the source code for Write, so using the binary is not enough.) > > I didn't know they had a limited life - how many operations? What is the > failure mode? All electromechanical components have limited lives. Typical specified electrical lives for relays are 100,000 operations, with rather longer mechanical ones. This is why use of the KIO2 to scan across bands is discouraged. The manufacturers don't specify what constitutes a failure, but an electrical one is likely to be parametric, i.e. excessive contact resistance, or bounce, and a mechanical one might be sluggish changeover, fatigue failure, or, maybe they would count contact welding. Keeping the switched voltages and currents low, and avoiding inductive loads on the contacts may improve the electrical life, as will tolerating higher final contact resistances. (Note these are lifetimes and represent wearout failures. Components may also have random failures resulting in mean time between failure figures, which can actually (e.g. hard disks) exceed the wearout lifetime.) -- David Woolley Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want. RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam, that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com |
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