Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!super!udel!rochester!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!texbell!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Next Amiga system
Message-ID: <2808@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 13 Oct 88 11:47:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: sugar.2808
References: <8810030229.AA19219@cory.Berkeley.EDU> <2745@sugar.uu.net> <229@dsacg2.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 39

In article <229@dsacg2.UUCP>, nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) writes:
> In article <3320@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>, wayneck@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp) writes:
> > P.S. The reason why 8-bit DACs are getting cheap is because there is a large
> > demand for then.  Haven't you guys wondered why there are so many 8-bit triple
> > DACs out there? 

> Does this explain why 256k chips are still so cheap? :-)  I always thought
> that large demand caused prices to go up.

At a given cost of production, yes. But there's this thing called economies
of scale... the demand goes up, so the price goes up. This means that people
ramp up the supply. You get a lower cost of production because you can share
the cost of the assembly line used to produce the chips between more chips.
Now the prices go down until the new equilibrium is reached. Of course this
increases the demand, you get higher prices, more supply, lower prices.

Eventually you get to the point where everyone is using all the 8-bit DACS
they can and the demand becomes inelastic. But by now prices are pretty low
and people are buying plenty. Everyone's happy, except the people who's job
is building assembly lines.

So, you come up with the 12-bit DAC... Or maybe a faster 8-bit ADC for image
capture. Or something else.

The problem with RAM chips is that the government panicked after the cost of
production began sliding and forced an artificial shortage. This halted the
slide in the cost of production. The people whose job it is to build assembly
lines decided that they needed to start early on the 1 megabit parts. Of
course, they're not quite as mature so the yeilds are lower. This means higher
costs of production and lower supply. Nobody's happy, except for the people
who build assembly lines.

> In fact I thought this was one of
> the principles that America was built on.

Franklin would agree. Jefferson wouldn't.
-- 
		Peter da Silva  `-_-'  peter@sugar.uu.net
		 Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?