How many Amiga users are left?

[amiga92570]

It's actually based on research done many moons ago by component and TV manufactures like Samsung...

You see my brother in law who's a TV engineer (well back in the days of CRT TV's) always used to show me and talk about the latest research done in that field...

A number of reports were about the testing of mainly capacitors and the showed that the initial voltage surge that all appliances receive when powerd on directly from the mains and not like from standy-by these days, results in an initial high voltage spike/surge that degrades capacitors by the equivalent  of nearly 30 days non stop use at each initial power up...

For me it seems to have proven true as I very rarely (if ever) switch things off and have had very few electrical items break down on me over the years. Sure all things degrade and wear out eventually but older computers, tvs etc... suffer more from this mainly due to the size and amount of large (in comparison to more modern stuff) capacitors they use...

It's like the often heard story of someone digging out of their loft an old Amiga that was working fine when they put it away all those years ago, it worked fine when they put it away but when they dug it out and switched it on it doesn't work, mainly because the capacitors have dried out and the initial voltage shock after all these years kills them totally...

The old C64 was notorious for this problem as a lot of the games were "reset proof" and so the only way to reset the computer was to switch it off and on which took it's toll on the PSU's capacitors, this was easily fixed when people bagan making reset switches & cartridges for the C64 that did away with the need to constantly power off and on...

Franko, your opinions are always entertaining. But, aside from what you and your brother think capacitors have a lifespan rating. Here is how it is is calculated so you know the facts. Surge really has nothing to do with it unless you used the wrong voltage rating in your design.http://www.illinoiscapacitor.com/tech-center/life-calculators.aspx