Eyedot (Europe) Ltd began as an organisation supporting proprietary, high end computer systems used in a number of applications including full motion flight simulators. Customers that bought a multi-million pound simulator expected the system to be supported for many years; no-one should need to replace an investment that large very often.
As PCs became more powerful, more popular, and cheaper, suppliers moved away from bespoke computing and adopted the PC as a basis for their systems. This was a choice that made sense at the time since PC technology is always advancing meaning more and more powerful simulators could be developed without the need to create new hardware as manufacturers across the globe took care of that as part of their own development. Many parts could be bought commercially and the entire simulator could be made almost modular, in terms of the control and graphics systems.
For a company that continuously supports and upgrades their simulators that would be a great solution; the simulator not only keeps working, but continually advances, too.
The reality is a bit different. Like most manufacturers - cars, mobile phones - even PCs themselves - as technology progresses, support for the existing product quickly falls away. For PCs, a five year old simulator with a faulty graphics card has almost no chance of finding a direct replacement off the shelf unless the sim manufacturer bought a large stock for future repairs. A modern graphics card could very well be unsupported by the older operating system, meaning the PC needs to be upgraded so much, a new one would be a more logical choice. Then there are problems with installing old software on new machines so now the software needs replacing, but the motion systems don’t connect to the new software so that needs upgrading/replacing, too!
There are a few industries where the existing hardware needs to continue to operate due to safety approvals. One example could be the railways. For a rail system to become publicly operational, it must be subject to, and pass, safety approval validation testing. One of the side effects of this is that no part of the system can change from the originally approved design. Old PCs with old software must continue to operate as it did when it was first installed.
Eyedot (Europe) Ltd., have built a strong reputation for the maintenance and support of our customers’ electronic systems. Through our network of obsolescence specialist component suppliers and our 30+ year experience, we are able to source original parts to keep your system operational. Of course, there are times when component supplies have simply been exhausted. In those cases, we offer a design solution that can drop in place of the unavailable part and keep your system - and business - running smoothly.
All too often we hear, “recycle”, but this rhetoric could mean an otherwise working product is broken down, smelted and melted, used for the manufacture of new material, transported, machined and remanufactured into a new product, all at the needless expense of vast amounts of energy.
At Eyedot, we prefer a better solution - “Repair and reuse!”
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