From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=   wrote:   
   >On Tue, 4 Nov 2025 19:05:12 -0500 (EST), Scott Dorsey wrote:   
   >   
   >> On Tue, 4 Nov 2025 20:34:15 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>> On Tue, 4 Nov 2025 12:27:27 -0000 (UTC), David LaRue wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>> Most of my career has been with companies whose products are   
   >>>> mission critical and must be reliable for 20 years or more at a   
   >>>> minimum. Such systems should never fail.   
   >>>   
   >>> And surely, they should not continue to depend on critical   
   >>> components which have become obsolete or unsupported, should they?   
   >>   
   >> We have plenty of systems around here that are based on RT-11.   
   >   
   >So that’s a “no”? You *should* continue to depend on critical   
   >components which have become obsolete or unsupported?   
      
   The problem is that I can get better support for RT-11 than for Windows 11.   
      
   >> The embedded control world is not the IT world. Embedded systems   
   >> often outlast their support and their manufacturer. So you plan for   
   >> it.   
   >   
   >How is the customer supposed to do that? Are you able to offer them   
   >solid support contracts for the duration of the expected life of the   
   >product in question? What happens if that duration exceeds the   
   >supported lifetime of some upstream proprietary product that *you*   
   >depend on? Do you take on the necessary support burden on behalf of   
   >your customer? Or do you just tell them that’s not within the scope of   
   >the support contract?   
      
   I'm used to getting a ten-year guarantee for parts availability, and   
   full schematics with test equipment.  Source code would be nice but   
   usually isn't available for production systems anymore.  Although since   
   it was often available for older systems when they were shipped, it is   
   easier for me to fix the 1980s GenRad 2615 analyzer than the latest Keysight.   
   --scott   
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)