johns said:
There are two Acer companies ... one is fairly high level electronics
research
... the other sells pure and total garbage. It is entirely possible
that at some
date they have decided to improve their products ... or that they are
selling
someone elses products. Personally, I have "attempted" to repair their
garbage,
and what I generally discover is that the product is so poorly designed
that it
is simply incompatible with other hardware ... that is their cdroms in
spades.
It might work. It might not. I would not touch it if they gave it to
me.
johns
Years ago, there were two Japanese CB radio manufacturers. One was named
President and the other Robyn.
Endless battles would develop on the air about which was the best and why. I
was an electronics technician in those days and my primary interest was
communications transceivers of all types.
Pulling the case/cover from a President and a Robyn simultaneously and
putting them side by side, it became apparent that both were made by the
same manufacturer, in the same factory, by the same people, with the same
designers. You could swap case components and they would fit the other
perfectly.
Looking at the circuit board, you could see without a doubt that they were,
indeed, the same circuit board. There were provisions for loading a
different set of components here and there, but, they were, alas, identical.
The next revelation in manufacturing came about when VCR's came upon the
scene. Debates and arguments over which brand was best were never ending. It
then became public knowledge that there were only three manufacturers of
VCR's in the entire world at that time. Again, negating the arguments of
superiority. Why? Because all used the same basic components.
Is China doing the same thing? I don't know. But I do know that I don't get
excited about brand names these days. Once you see the light, there is no
going back. Regardless of the brand, I am interested only in initial
reputation and warranty support. I do not anticipate that any of the new
electronic devices will last as long as my Robyn 520D CB set, which is still
working well after 27 years. The new stuff is throw-away. If it is out of
warranty, it goes to the recycle center. It isn't worth repairing anyway,
because chances are it won't even work with the latest operating system
being issued by Microsoft. Let's worry about something important. This isn't
it.
Ed Cregger
