On Thursday, 16 May 2019 14:43:47 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 15/05/2019 17:59, tabbypurr wrote:
On Wednesday, 15 May 2019 17:33:42 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 15/05/2019 13:47, Jethro_uk wrote:

Conversely I am totally unsurprised. I wouldn't trust *any* consumer-
grade wireless equipment. WiFi, bluetooth, proprietary zappers. None has
been 100% reliable. I can see where the money goes on military kit, if
they have to be 100% reliable.

IME military kit is not necessarily any more reliable. All you can
usually hope for is it will work at a wider temperature range, and be
designed to let you hose the remains of the previous operator off it
with no ill effects!

Neither of those have any truth IME. And yes I did work with such kit.

So your experience is limited, who knew?

if by limited you mean years in the industry then yes


Perhaps I need a "tongue in cheek" flag?

(and the "hose off" bit on some projects is a rather grim and sad
reality

Sadly it can be. However I don't believe any of the equipment I worked on or with or even just saw was hoseable.


- I recall one installation of several mil spec workstations in
the back of a 4 tonne army truck that would be expected to operate not
far behind a front line ans so was considered vulnerable to chemical and
biological attack. It was designed such that you could open the drain
gates, and apply a high pressure hose to the top of it. All the kit had
to be IP68 or better)

but a lot is not

As to reliable, much depends on your definition of reliable. Yup its
physically robust, and built with high reliability components, but it
general is only slightly less likely (if at all) to have bugs than
commercial kit.

The software for it is developed, designed and documented to far higher
standards than commercial kit. And its well tested, and usually far more
maintainable. However it also suffers from a much smaller user base in
many cases, and often relies on tool chains that have a vastly smaller
user bases than more traditional desktop development tools. So it can
take longer to find and fix issues than in the commercial world.

It's certainly better than domestic retaill stuff, no doubt. But still long term reliability varies a lot. Engineering for reliability is not as easy as it looks.


NT