POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Product Mysteries : Re: Product Mysteries Server Time
3 Sep 2024 19:16:11 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Product Mysteries  
From: Darren New
Date: 25 Jan 2011 14:38:30
Message: <4d3f26b6$1@news.povray.org>
Warp wrote:
>   Well, as technology advances it often quite ironically happens that
> the older some technology gets, the more expensive it becomes to purchase.

That was what I had intended to imply, yes. :-)

> (both because production costs are still high due to the lack of cheap
> production lines, and to capitalize on the eagerness of early adopters).

It's more that the technology requires a shake-down period. Yields are 
tremendously low until every one of the hundreds of precise steps gets 
adjusted just right.  A 10% yield on early runs is a good number.

You're also paying off the design. I have a friend who designed RISC chips 
for one of the big CPU companies before ARM bought them out, and he told me 
about half the cost of a chip over its lifetime is design costs. That is, if 
you sell a total of $100million worth of CPUs over its lifetime, it costs 
about $50million to design them and $50million to manufacture and distribute 
them.

+=+=+=+

Oh, and if anyone cares, here's what the video from those glasses looks like:

http://darren.s3.amazonaws.com/PICT0001.AVI
http://darren.s3.amazonaws.com/PICT0003.AVI


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."


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