On 2006-11-16 23:20:17 +0000, Ed Sirett said:


Part of me is truly impressed with the design which makes a whole range of
models from the same production line. Part of me is wondering by
what mechanism can a the huge price differentials be maintained ( £815
versus £1009) for essentially a firmware difference.

Why does a dog lick its parts?

The large computer manufacturers did this for years, some may still.
IBM is reputed
to have had a DASD (disk drive to everyone else) upgrade to improve the
data rate.
This consisted of two pullies and a belt and the customer was neither
allowed to see the
upgrade kit or the installation of it "for intellectual property
reasons". Cost was some way into four figures.




I suppose some people would say buy a 30kW boiler from someone else who
could potentially be cheaper for the higher powered models.
In Hong Kong there is probably someone who sells grey market chip upgrades...