Isn't it nice to have backward compatible code? <p>Dave

New things so cheap because they were made with cheap labor overseas, and repairs are so expensive because the repairman is local, the waste of perfectly good things will continue...until we all drown in trash.

Thanks for writing this article. Our culture is overwhelmed with trash. Global warming threatens to make our world uninhabitable. Much of the world has insufficient resources for survival. And the so-called "civilized" world is based on an economy that encourages throwing out perfectly good "stuff" and replacing it with more junk that's going to fail, is planned to be unfixable and the cycle goes on. And on.

If you want to see where North American society needs to go, just look at Europe, which has worse problems wrt garbage. Look at Germany, which has a law giving responsibility to dispose things to the manufacturer that produced the product to begin with. That provides a good incentive to make products that are easy to reuse or recycle. <p>Cheers! <a href="http://www.boldts.net/">Hans</a>

Software compatibility is another issue. Is it always a good thing? I spent the past 3 years working on the zSeries. In that realm, any program written 40 years ago will still run today. This has been achieved by (substantially) maintaining the 360/370 instruction set while adding on hack upon hack to get around the limitations of the 360/370 instruction set. <p>Often, there are good reason to break backward compatibility. Look at the example I brought up of polarized 2-pronged electrical plugs. These won't fit in older 2-slot outlets, but have significant safety advantages. <p>Cheers! <a href="http://www.boldts.net/">Hans</a>

"These won't fit in older 2-slot outlets, but have significant safety advantages." <p>But the older plugs still fit in the new! <p>Joe

While I agree with your sentiment Hans, USA already has at least 3 companies with patents and devices that consume garbage and generate hydrogen for use in generators. They shred the garbage (abolutely any kind of garbage even toxic materials) and feed it into a plasma arc in a sealed chamber. The machine literally rips it appart molecularly and outputs certain component parts. They expect deployment to begin within a few years. It generates enough hydrogen to generate the electicity the machine needs plus extra to power to put back on the gird.

This is a discussion about <B>Planned Obsolescence</b>.<p align='center'><a href=http://www.mcpressonline.com/mc? This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it @.6b50a5c3>Click here for the article</a>.</p>

Sounds like a fancy form of incineration, which is politically unpalatable in many jurisdictions, including in this region. <p>Our primary strategy has to be reduction of waste, which has benefits at both ends of a products life cycle. Unfortunately, many companies here just don't get the message. Today, I went shopping for HP ink-jet cartridges. Staples sells a small package containing two cartridges. Costco sells a large plastic package containing three cartridges for $5 less per cartridge. What do you do? Go for the smaller package that's better for the environment, or go for the cheaper price? <p>Cheers! <a href="http://www.boldts.net/">Hans</a>