Comment by burnt-resistor
25 days ago
Vacuum/pneumatic, analog electric, and hydraulic control systems exist and are able to accomplish control functions comparable to proprietary computer-controlled systems with varying degrees of efficiency, accuracy, and precision. The root cause of the situation is greedy corporations who don't want to produce long-lasting, quality products and a lack of appropriate and sensible government regulations to prevent them from exploiting planned obsolescence and price gouging parts and support.
Though I'm sure that in many instances a box of tricks that dies is because the 80c capacitor or 2 buck transistor was a few cents cheaper than a better longer life equivalent component, simply the lack of a good long lasting component at a cost effective price is the problem - in my tropical locale, the lack of market presence of a robust switch is a major headache for much of the fly by wire machinery that really needs a better switch when fixing the POS tin plated version that relies of being sealed for it's protection against the elements. Back at least to the 80s, they seemed to have a better regard for what electrochemical potentials of various metals to build robust switches that didn't rely entirely on being sealed ... for example though the old foot dimmers on cars would sometimes give minor trouble, for the most part they worked for a long time in a hostile environment without the need to oil and fuss over them.