Would you design your own hardware if you could?

[yoda313]

If given the opportunity would you design your own electronic hardware? Say a company allowed you to have five or more designs available with interchangeable parts and just a minimum size footprint to work with. Would you design your own piece? OR if you have could have virtually unlimited design choices would you do it? How much of a premium would pay for it?

[Bjs]

Bloody oath ... provided they keep their own idiot tech's out of the flamin way , before I go on a murder spree with an axe .

As for unlimited component's vs price ... aiming at the mid range market would be more profitable taking into account average pc spec's , and average user's abilities to full comprehend all aspects of the device and any software supplied with it .

The old saying : Keep it simple stupid .

No blasted minimum requirement for a P4 3400 + pci-e + 2gig mem with either xp / vista .

I'd aim at 1500mhz cpu + 16mb vid + 256 mem with win98se as the minimum .
Cause there's more of them around actually being used on a daily basis by the average user ... and no blasted "activation" policy crapola .

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Where is : I already do this ? ... I modify failed hardware all the time .

[Mr. Dweezel]

The only thing I would do is build quality into the device.

There isn't really anything wrong with things today except that quality is missing.

Things aren't built to last any more.

Does anybody remember..... "The quality goes in before the name goes on"? Zenith TM

Oh, one more thing I would want................Buttons!!!
Lots and lots of buttons. I hate menus on everything.

Yoda mentioned interchangeable parts. That would be great. That's how I build my PCs.
Everything can be swapped from one PC to the other.

[yoda313]

Yoda mentioned interchangeable parts. That would be great. That's how I build my PCs.
Everything can be swapped from one PC to the other.

Actually I remeber seeing a high end amplifier that had upgradable boards just like a pc. Can't remember the name but was one of those multi-thousands of dollars premium equipment.



This poll wasn't just for computers I mean any electronics.

[edDV]

I've experienced all the extremes of this.

Consider building a real time (high end video throughput) multi tasking (switch and save state) DOS based processor controlled by a second 386 running Windows 3.0 user interface (prototypes running Windows 1.1 to 2.2). Also consider this goes into a high end video post production setting and needs to compete for reliability with distributed microprocessors of the day. And it actually worked !!

Other extreme. Read the motherboard and component reviews. Pick the best parts and build a system. Select major parts only after evaluating their support website.

[EddyH]

YES
I wouldn't even be too bothered with the look of it, because the chinese have already proved they can knock out five good-looking and fairly unique designs in between coffee breaks on a friday afternoon, just wait a week and pick and choose between what's in stock

But coming up with the actual hardware for devices I'd really want to buy is something I've noodled with ever since I was about 9 and old enough to realise that these things were designed and made, rather than simply popped into existance in order to be my entertainment.
... I'm still waiting for my handheld, floppy disc based MOD/MIDI/YM2149 music player, ebook reader, console and organiser, damnit
Though I suppose that's probably known as an NGage, or DS, or N95, or iPaq/XDA/Palm pilot/Q1 these days