Erik,

In this case, I'm revisiting a very (>20 years) old project that was put on the shelf. A colleague at one of the local colleges asked me about this because he rememberd I took this up back in '87 or so. The thing I started uses an 8748, and is "built" already, but hasn't ever been coded. It uses TWO LCD's, one being the DUT, and one being the local display. He's teaching a course of some sort that he thinks will be helped by having the students actually locate and acquire their own components, which I think is a GOOD idea. He wants ONE of these things, so they can bring in their LCD's and verify that they're fully functional before tearing out their hair trying to do what the device can't because it's defective in some way. Actually, I doubt they'll encounter many that will fail, but it's a confidence-building measure. I'm hoping to find the work has already been done, so I can translate this to 804x and give him my old hardware to use as he pleases. I'm afraid I haven't a big budget nor do I need one, as this is strictly pro-bono.

I buy from surplus vendors when I have to fix ONE unit or when I'm building ONE unit. If I'm spending someone else's money, I do just like you, and spend 100x the "normal" price, if necessary, but, as it happens, on the few occasions when I've bought LCD's through distribution, I've had about an 8% (1 in 12) failure rate. Distributors happily replace the failed units, but testing, as in "incoming inspection" is costly, in terms of the usual "spot-checks" and 100% inspection is unrealistic for most circumstances, hence, device failure doesn't appear until final inspection, when it is even more costly, since it now means devices have to be extracted from the production stream and remanufactured.

I much prefer spending $4 rather than $40+freight, even if it's someone else's money.

It's the 100% inspection that I'm investigating.

When I drive to Boulder in order to check the ONE "local" (40 miles away) piece-parts vendor in the area, often for purposes of effecting a repair or maybe just to save a day or two of shipping time, and NEVER just to find one or two parts, I sometimes encounter devices that I can use. If these happen to be LCD's, I like to check them out before I take them home, since it is an 80-mile round trip. Back in the days when we had surplus parts vendors in Denver, I simply returned 'em when I happened to be in the area, but I really don't like even visiting the "people's republic of Boulder," where smoking tobacco is forbidden, but smoking hemp isn't. (no, I'm not a smoker.)

I hate paying $45 extra for Saturday A.M. delivery for a part that costs $3. I don't care that the money is small. I don't like paying $.03 extra, either, if I can avoid it by buying elsewhere.

So long as people continue to pay extra for such things, prices will continue to go up at the ridiculous rate at which they're doing it. So long as people continue to pay $3 for gasoline, it will move up to $5. So long as people continue to buy junk from GM, Ford, and Chrysler, they'll continue to sell it and for more $$$ every year. So long as engineers continue to pay more and More and MORE for development materials, their customers will continue to try to save where they can, which is in the labor cost, meaning that they'll send the development work, which is the interesting part, to Mumbai rather than having it done here.

So, pray tell, how's making my materials cost 100x as large as it could be going to help get me, here in the U.S, more work, when it encourages my customers to have Sushil, in India, do the work?

A agree about the VFD, but that's not the task at hand.

(BTW, do you notice how you've changed the subject, twice, in fact? That's what I've complained to you about for as long as I can remember.)

RE