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FW: Re: computers

To: mgs
Subject: FW: Re: computers
From: Mark J Bradakis <mjb>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 00:32:17 -0600 (MDT)
[BOUNCE mgs@Autox.Team.Net:    Non-member submission from ["Keith M. Wheeler" 
<keithw@ARMAnet.com>]]

     Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 12:56:48 -0700
     From: "Keith M. Wheeler" <keithw@ARMAnet.com>
     Subject: Re: computers

Trevor wrote:
 
(lot's of verbage regarding the topic deleted)

>  Anyone with an evening of free time can learn every
>component of an EFI system and how to test them. The only
>part you can't learn about in an evening is the computer
>itself, and failures here are EXTREMELY rare and easy
>to diagnose by ruling everything else out.

Rare in new cars.  Go talk to the fuel injected TR-8 crowd and
ask them how often they fail.  I think, to me at least, the
problem with an ECU's is the question of restoration.  A carb
part can be machined and copied.  What do you do in 2027 when
you're trying to restore a 1990 whatever and you can't get
a .hex file?  Carbs seem so much more "fixable".  Of course
technology may change that, more aftermarket ECU's and so 
forth, but still...some metal carb bits could be made with a
file and some time...obsolete microprocessors aren't that
easy to copy.  $1000 will put a cheesy but usable milling
machine in your garage.  Somehow I doubt a couple of decades
of tech will bring the price of sub-micron lithography to such
affordable levels.

>  It's just proving my point. Every person who stands up
>in this thread against computers starts their message
>with "Well, I don't really know anything about engine
>computers, and I don't know how to work on them, but
>I don't like them".

Very true, lack of understanding and frustration at authority
can cause such behaviour.  

>  How many people can you find that say "I fully understand
>both LBC mechanicals and modern car electronics. I am
>equally well versed and diagnosing and fixing either. There
>is no doubt in my mind that the old systems are better
>in every way"?

Again, I think they are better in only one way, the restoration
factor.  ECU's seem so "throw away" and consumeristic as opposed
to a carb.  I could see someone in the future (or even today, I
tried to talk the TR-8 guys out of a dead ECU) specializing in
restoring/updating "antique" ECU's.  

And, I'm still trying to a find an ECU for my Rover engine.  Plenty
of aftermarket carbs out there for it, but the only ECU's I've
been able to find are new, for $450, which is to me way too much
for an 8-bit processor and some EPROM.

-Keith
        '60 Bugeye      '64 MGB
        '68 MGB         '75 MGB (waiting for a 3.9 Rover)

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