[Jukebox-list] A better understanding

[David Breneman]

--- dirksenj at bellsouth.net wrote:

> Over time, they get comfortable and 
> relax, allowing the competition to get an edge. Then as you say,
> money gets tight and of course cost becomes the main focus.

I always thought that AMI's switch from the original
200-selection mechanism premiered in the G-200, to
the "new" 200-selection mechanism was an interesting
case in point.  The original mechanism had a lot of
cast and machined parts.  The newer mechanism is mostly
stampings and extrusions.  At some point, the scale
tipped and it became more ecomonical to throw out
the old mechanism and design a totally new one to
do exactly the same thing, rather than keep producing
the old mechanism.  But, the fact that Rowe/AMI
is still using a modified version of this over-40-year-old
mechanism to play CDs in their current machines proves
that it was an astute investment.  Seeburg, on the other
hand, kept producing the same basic mechanism that had
permiered with the M100-B, and by the time the tooling
wore out they were too poor to engineer a followon
mechanism.  If they'd done that in the 60s, when they had
moiney and  manufacturing practices were changing, they
might still be in business today.  A Select-O-Matic mechanism
built according to the engineering standards of the 1960s
could certainly be modified to play CDs as easily as an
AMI mechanism, and would be very compact and fun to watch.

> Wes, in today's workforce, we have a thing called random drug
> testing. 

That depends entirely on where you work.  I've only
worked at one company that required a piss test as
a condition of employment (not random testing) and
that was Airborne Express.  The rationale was "The
pilots have to do it, so everybody does it."  That
company no longer exists.


David Breneman         david_breneman at yahoo.com

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