Nothing works

[DrStrangelove]

The latest nothing works is a machine in Barclays Bank which decided to break down & keep my card this morning.

I should have read the runes on Monday when the same machine failed to let me pay off my Barclaycard.

Things went from bad to worse and after 51.5 years I'll be closing all my accounts with Barclays once I've opened a couple with someone else.

If the obnoxious bald headed twerp was the manager then things have definitely changed since last saw one in 1976.

[Doodlebug]

Kodak box camera still working and old Royal typewriter too.
Grandfather clock still ticks away but quartz clock contact broke.

[ppppenguin]

...I'll be closing all my accounts with Barclays once I've opened a couple with someone else.

If you're happy to go to a bank which has no branches there's Firstdirect.  Superb service if you need to phone them. I've been with them since 1990, soon after they started, but don't take my word for it:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/bankin...-accounts/

[Radio Fixer]

+1 on Firstdirect.

Gary

[Slidertogrid]

I wonder what would happen if someone developed a pulse weapon of some type that knocked out silicon, You could argue that a lot of sensitive electronics are shielded for example a car ECU but the wiring leading to it isn't. If a big enough pulse hit the wiring could it still cause damage? We have 'put all of our eggs in one basket' with electronic control, if it was knocked out completely we would have no electricity, water, waste water control. traffic lights, the list goes on. I have a car with no electronics but if there was no petrol pumps working it wouldn't go for long... I do wonder how realistic this kind of threat is...?

On the subject of modern stuff being crap, my first central heating boiler lasted 19 years, replaced with a combi that lasted 21 years. replaced with a combi that lasted three years before the heat exchanger started leaking on a failed weld. looking on the internet it is a very common fault. I could have claimed on the warrantee which would have meant I would have had to prove it had been serviced annually and had it inspected etc etc ( in other words they would look for any reason to deny the claim) I didn't want to be without heating and hot water any longer than I had been already so I just paid up and had another (different make) boiler fitted. this time with a 5 year service contract and guarantee.
Manufacturers that used to make quality products now seem to trade on their previous good reputation and now pass off average to poor build quality behind their name. Presumably putting profit first, this is a very short term way to conduct business but by the time their reputation is ruined the directors will be retired on a nice pension and it won't be their problem. I can think of many domestic appliance and car manufacturers that are guilty of this practice.

[Paul_RK]

I filled my trusty Waterman just a couple of hours ago, from a 2oz bottle of Quink that gets refilled every now and then (not very often these days) from a 20oz one. Wound the library's modest 1930-ish longcase clock (granddaughter?) too. Its Westminster chimes are intact, unlike those of Fakenham Church which are currently missing one note in every four.

Seems to me that extreme reliability has been available for a while now in domestic electronics wherever it's really wanted. The most elaborate radio here  - perhaps the most elaborate quasi-domestic set anywhere,  I can't think of a rival - is a Panasonic RF-9000,  employing 174 discrete transistors, 21 FETs and 41 ICs, 40 years old and still fully working. I hope it stays that way, just leafing through the service manual makes my head spin.

Paul

[BusyBee]

I wonder what would happen if someone developed a pulse weapon of some type that knocked out silicon,  You could argue that a lot of sensitive electronics are shielded for example a car ECU but the wiring leading to it isn't. If a big enough pulse hit the wiring could it still cause damage?  We have 'put all of our eggs in one basket' with electronic control, if it was knocked out completely we would have no electricity, water, waste water control. traffic lights, the list goes on. I have a car with no electronics but if there was no petrol pumps working it wouldn't go for long... I do wonder how realistic this kind of threat is...?

This is one effect from a nuclear weapon with it's electromagnetic pulse. It has been said that the Russian rod tubes were used so late partly because they were less prone to issues from that source although I have always wondered a bit about the truth in that as there are likely other components in circuits which do use semiconductor or similar fine tolerance materials which may be adversly affected by heavy radiation. It's true to say though that the semiconductor industry, with a view to military requirements, has done much work there. The Russians were slower to get there.

Technologies were developed which helped like "Silicon on Sapphire" and much research has been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening

[Mike Watterson]

Direct Radiation and EMP are completely separate issues. Radioactive fallout is also a different issue.

In theory you can have an EMP with no radiation. Can be done in a lab and also lightning (which can be upwards into space) generates an EMP. It's just that atomic / nuclear weapons emitted an unexpectedly strong EMP. The Russians often used Germanium power transistors as HT inverters and sometimes for audio out on Rod tube systems. They were behind on Silicon and for RF the rod tubes were far better than their RF Germanium parts.

So the MiGs using Rod tubes could have been a mix of inertia and lack of decent semiconductors rather than genuine EMP resistance because of Germanium transistor power supplies! Besides a decent EMP might take out the filament (though I'm only guessing).

The satellites etc, starting with Sputnik, did use Rod tubes for a long while and that was because of radiation (not EMP) that was an issue for germanium or silicon for a long while. Curiously Cosmic Radiation, especially beyond Van Allen Belts, is very damaging (also to people) and is worse when the Solar wind is slack (a solar flare is damaging). A huge issue for travel to Mars. You can mitigate with a dual layer hull with water inside as shielding. Silicon on sapphire of itself does nothing for EMP or radiation hardening. A radiation proof device (mostly anyway) might still be just as vulnerable to EMP. Radiation will change the 1 and 0s in RAM, a soft error that can be recovered. EMP generates high induced currents that actually fail a device or a bond wire like blowing a fuse.

[DrStrangelove]

Starfish Prime: a proper Brock's Benefit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

Knocking out street lights 900 miles away and knocking out a microwave link.

Considering the feature sizes in semiconductors of that date I'd wager that much of today's production would be toast.

I recall reading of some non nuclear EMP testing in one or other of the Areas of the Nevada Desert (probably not 51) where they did some testing.

When the staff went to drive home in their cars parked in the carpark, they were all toast. That's the cars, not the staff.

[Mike Watterson]

And these where longer term radiation effects.

The weaponeers became quite worried when three satellites in low Earth orbit were disabled. These included TRAAC and Transit 4B.[13] The half-life of the energetic electrons was only a few days. At the time it was not known that solar and cosmic particle fluxes varied by a factor of 10, and energies could exceed 1 MeV (0.16 pJ). In the months that followed, these man-made radiation belts eventually caused six or more satellites to fail,[14] as radiation damaged their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial relay communication satellite, Telstar, as well as the United Kingdom's first satellite, Ariel 1.[15] Detectors on Telstar, TRAAC, Injun, and Ariel 1 were used to measure distribution of the radiation produced by the tests.[16]

In 1963, it was reported that Starfish Prime had created a belt of MeV electrons.[17] In 1968, it was reported that some Starfish electrons had remained in the atmosphere for 5 years

The EMP (Electromagnetic pulse) is instantaneous, like the electrical signal from a lightning flash (which is actually many discharges so fast they look like one flash).

Telstar did work but failed early due to the excess radiation.