Re: filmscanners: real value?

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Michael Moore wrote:

> I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th
> US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP
> 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come
> with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the
> cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print
> head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't
> be made to last...
> 
> Mike M
> 

Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of 
the prices on these)?  And yes, most anything can be made to last, it 
costs more R&D and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to 
do so.  That's not my point.  Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) 
that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, 
doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph 
for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high 
tech.  If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 
50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely.  The darn thing 
has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or 
resale value.

BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs 
about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too)  And if you'd like that one, 
you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 
12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and 
is bigger than a tower computer ;-)

Art