[sdiy] [OT] puzzling EPROM problem

[Don Tillman]

My thoughts on the topic, for what it's worth...

I think Harry's rant about bean counters should also be directed at
the customers.  In a market where customers tend to pay only for
specific features and not for generally high quality construction, it
shouldn't be surpising to see lots of features and cheezy construction.

On sockets: 
Most ICs are really, really reliable and won't ever need to be
replaced.  These chips do not need to be socketed.

Some IC's might want to be replaced at some point in the future:
  anything programmable, 
  circuits where future chip improvements can pay off 
   (ie., opamps in the audio path),
  really expensive chips, 
  chips that aren't completely reliable,
  chips that connect to the outside world and might suffer ESD damage.

It makes a lot of sense to socket those ICs.

I also think Harry brings up a very important point that probably
deserves a whole separate topic: gig failure.

  -- Don

-- 
Don Tillman
Palo Alto, California, USA
don at till.com
http://www.till.com