Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Cydrome Leader" wrote in message
...

I was just thinking about other things that are just overly complex
for no
reason ...

Have you ever personally participated in the design of new products?

In the software world, yes. People get really carried away with stupid,
overly complex ideas that were just bad to start with.

You start by defining the requirements, or rather debating them until

Actual requirements are usually really hard to come by.

you're too tired to argue, then distribute the work among your
personnel, come up with a separate solution to each requirement,
prototype and test them individually and then together, and finally
try to combine the elements that seem to need no further redesign to
serve multiple functions and reduce tooling, fabrication and assembly
cost while management pesters you to release it to production NOW to
beat the competition to market. They are obsessed with the name
recognition and sales momentum that comes with being first, and know
that the engineers would love to keep playing with it.

All the while realizing that you may be out of a job when it's
complete, unless your performance gets you nominated to the next new
product design team, if there is one.

At the prototype stage having each part serve a single function is an
advantage when it needs to be reworked. Combining and simplifying them
later is time-consuming and non-essential.

Well, in the case of the original F camera of early 1970s revision, every
damn part it connected. There's no sign of any modules of grouped
functionality or subassemblies that are not interconnected in 3 dimensions
with 15 other parts. That's why I wonder if labor was free when thing
thing came off the assembly line. Even assembling it would have taken
ages.

I recall some VCRs that were never designed to be serviced. Replacing one
tire involved actually cutting a hole the stamped metal made up the
transport. Sanyo eventually woke up and redesigned it enlarged openings
where people were previously cutting holes. Stupid design.