Well, I just concluded eight-plus years as a senior tech writer at a major Silicon Valley semiconductor manufacturer, so I know a little about this phraseology. :-)
"Not recommended for new designs" means: "We've got a ton of this generation in the bins, so we'll keep selling them to our big customers and distributors, if they really want them, until we run out. And that's not going to happen any time soon. But you know, this generation has always been a little buggy; some things never quite worked the way we expected. We'll continue to support it and all its errata and patches because we have to, but really, we're just not very keen about it any more. We've got a new, improved, more capable, more expensive generation out there on the market already, and another two generations beyond that are already in the development pipeline, so... well, not to put too fine a point on it, you know, but we'd really prefer that you buy our newer stuff. You'll find our support for the new stuff to be much livelier and more enthusiastic." "Obsolete" means: "Some of our distributors likely still have a lot of this old stuff back in their warehouses, so you can still get it. Cheap! And since nobody ever volunteers to go pawing through our public website to weed out all the obsolete app notes, you can probably still find stuff on it if you dig deep enough... But look, we're not making it any more, and we've shut down all real-time tech support for it. The engineers who designed it aren't even here anymore. If you call, our guys won't even talk to you about it. Basically, you're on your own. Sorry about that." That's about the gist of it. :-) Bill W5WVO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike S" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Mark Bayern" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Ken_ke2n" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 6:49 PM Subject: Re: [K3] [Elecraft] K3 Obsolete? > At 08:40 PM 11/11/2008, Mark Bayern wrote... > > > it should be this one for the DSP > > > > > > http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tms320vc33.html > > > >That page _DOES_NOT_ say the chip is 'obsolete', it says 'Product is > >Not Recommended for New Design'. > > Same thing. You're obviously not familiar with semiconductor marketing, > and how they "spin" things. > > _______________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Post to: [email protected] > You must be a subscriber to post to the list. > Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm > Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com > _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
