RE: Car electronics

[Simon Favre <simon@domain.elided>]

Gee, I really threw a hand grenade into the bistro with this one. ;=)

Be careful about assuming that those analog units (K-jet & L-jet) can be 
rebuilt. While you can debug & replace passive components (resistors &
capacitors), there may well be a custom analog IC in there. I doubt all
the active components (transistors) would be discrete. In electronics,
component count is a killer for production costs. If the OEM has to spend
an extra 500K up front to make a custom IC for the ECU, but it saves them 
5M down the road, it's a no-brainer. I doubt there's even a recognizable
OP-AMP part out of a catalog in there. Maybe I should go up to APE some
day and tear apart an assortment of these things. They must have some
dead ones. Some passive parts may also be surface mount, which makes them
much more difficult for the DIY types to replace.

The distributor for a '67 Duetto is a 32 year old part. Think about what
it's like to get an electronic part for a 32 year old unit. Even for a
20 year old electronic unit, it's tough. Any IBM/Intel/Microsoft machine
can be rebuilt to modern specs by replacing subsystems. That's because
many of the interface specs haven't changed in 20 years. Of course, you
CAN move up to newer ones, but the basics are the same. Try fixing an
Apple II, or an early MAC. How about a new tape head for an 8-track?
The electronic collectors out there can testify to the difficulty in
getting certain vacuum tubes for antique radios, etc. There's a company
that specializes in such, but the supply is not growing. For a while,
Russia made some of the best tubes around. They had a series literally
called "Commie Virgins" that American audiophiles were nuts about.
About 25 years ago, when I bought my Giulietta Spider, I wanted to fix
up a Blaupunkt Frankfurt for it. I had a devil of a time getting new
control shafts for it, and it was only about 10-12 years old. One of
the parts was just a piece of steel that could have been remachined, but
the other was a combo on/off switch and volume control. Those things are
a b*tch to find.

Just in case you think this obsolete electronics thing is idle chitchat,
a few years back, the US Gummint spent many millions of tax dollars to
have a batch of RTL IC's reproduced. RTL came before TTL, which came
around right after the rocks cooled...

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