M9reno Posted January 30, 2014 Share #41 Posted January 30, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) Bought my dear mum a new Led Digital TV yesterday with a 5 year warranty, the salesperson informed me ......If it breaks, WE WILL REPLACE IT NOT REPAIR IT. Yes, and likewise (if the recent precedent of the coffee-stained M8 is any guide) Leica will eventually, probably sooner rather than later, refuse to repair our beloved digital oldies, and instead give us the option to trade up to a current digital model in part-exchange. (This last may have been one reason to continue the M9 as the ME, to provide stranded M8 users, for a short time at least, a step up - though not all the way up - the Leica product-ladder.) I suppose it could be much worse, but still... Would you pay to inscribe your name, or anything else, on a disposable object like a TV set? Then again, does any TV set manufacturer bother to encase its products in brass and leather and paint and scratch-resistant glass? Why should Leica even bother to do this for its (let's be frank) paperweights-to-be, which it released in 2006, or 2009, etc? Vanity, perhaps, but there are further issues here, of marketing and mark identity, of honesty in design, and even of environmental impact (just how easy will it be to recycle our brass bricks/"lifetime companions"?), that are worthy of our consideration. As the years pass, we (including Leica as a company) will move closer to discovering just how different a digital M is from its film ancestors, including in lifespan terms. Things might get pretty interesting as a result. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 Hi M9reno, Take a look here Leica full script on M 240. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted January 30, 2014 Share #42 Posted January 30, 2014 :rolleyes:Nice -somebody asks a polite question, so we give grumpy answers.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenPatterson Posted January 31, 2014 Share #43 Posted January 31, 2014 As the years pass, we (including Leica as a company) will move closer to discovering just how different a digital M is from its film ancestors, including in lifespan terms. Things might get pretty interesting as a result. Just like vintage cars, boats, watches, juke boxes, pin ball machines etc. there will be a repair market in the future for digital M cameras. There have been enough cameras produced to supply spare parts for those that desire to continue to use an M8, M9, M240, etc. Of course we're not talking about the disposable crowd, but people who appreciate a digital Leica that still had an optical viewfinder and manual rangefinder without M-AF lens compatibility, face detection, etc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
M9reno Posted January 31, 2014 Share #44 Posted January 31, 2014 Just like vintage cars, boats, watches, juke boxes, pin ball machines etc. there will be a repair market in the future for digital M cameras. There have been enough cameras produced to supply spare parts for those that desire to continue to use an M8, M9, M240, etc. Of course we're not talking about the disposable crowd, but people who appreciate a digital Leica that still had an optical viewfinder and manual rangefinder without M-AF lens compatibility, face detection, etc. The M9 owner in me wishes I believed that, Stephen. But there's not even such a repair market today, I think, for an M8 with broken LCD. What makes you think there will be one in the future? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWW Posted January 31, 2014 Share #45 Posted January 31, 2014 Fixing (or actually replacing) camera electronics should be far simpler than fixing future collector cars, of which current vehicles of any brand, are crammed full of electronics. If this can be accomplished for cars, then a Leica M8 or 9 fix should be a snap. If money is no object, the M8 LCD or any other part can be replaced by a part taken from another sacrificial M8 by a competent technician. If no market for this exists today, the most likely reason is that you can buy another functioning M8 cheaper than hiring the afore mentioned technician. One of my collections is amateur radio gear from Collins radio from the 1960's. These keep going up in value and repair of the now obsolete electronics is certainly possible and available. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
M9reno Posted January 31, 2014 Share #46 Posted January 31, 2014 It would be interesting to hear from the owner of an M8 who, due to his attachment to his personal copy, has looked into getting a "screen transplant" from a donor camera. Perhaps the forum can update its Recommended Repairpersons' sticky with people who would perform such an operation if cost were not an obstacle. DAG? Sherry? Youxin? Malcolm Taylor? I remain sceptical, but would be happy to be proved wrong. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmradman Posted January 31, 2014 Share #47 Posted January 31, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) If repair of DMRs is anything to go by than repair of M8/M9/M240 etc will be possible as long as there are donor cameras. Repairing is really wrong word, fitting replacment parts or modules is more like it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
M9reno Posted January 31, 2014 Share #48 Posted January 31, 2014 There are M8 donor cameras with good LCDs out there right now, awaiting both patients and capable surgeons... I don't know of any takers. Maybe the real question is: why bother? Today's "I love my fur-(or whatever)-clad digital M" vanity is tomorrow's "sorry, model obsolete or discontinued, so-who'd-want-it-anyway junk". We have lost sight of the fact that, despite their appearance, materials, and cost, all digital Ms are simply disposable objects. It would take a foolhardy man to bet that what has already happened with the M8 will not happen over, and over again, to every successive model. We're talking about support windows counted in the fingers of one hand, or part of the next hand, if you're very lucky. The company's marketing rhetoric hasn't helped much in dispelling the delusional comparison to film bodies. Only the fine print reveals what my embossed, cursive-logoed, shiny "lifetime companion" really is: the user manual instructs, as required by law, not to throw out a used-up digital Leica M with the normal household trash! I wish the Old Man were here to provide further perspective. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted February 7, 2014 Share #49 Posted February 7, 2014 Future could bring pleasant opportunities... In the electronics world, they are speaking of "cheap" machinery to build components at density levels that nowadays are relics (i have read of re-making Z80 and 8086 Cpu...) What can we imagine for 25 years from now?? Small fabs to rebuild venerable 10-18 mp sensors ?? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted February 7, 2014 Share #50 Posted February 7, 2014 Maybe just print them? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenPatterson Posted February 7, 2014 Share #51 Posted February 7, 2014 It would be interesting to hear from the owner of an M8 who, due to his attachment to his personal copy, has looked into getting a "screen transplant" from a donor camera. Perhaps the forum can update its Recommended Repairpersons' sticky with people who would perform such an operation if cost were not an obstacle. DAG? Sherry? Youxin? Malcolm Taylor? I remain sceptical, but would be happy to be proved wrong. I guarantee that if an owner of an M8 Safari had an LCD failure that a replacement could be secured. I only hope that there are a few of these being used in the world, and that they are not all just taking up space in locked vaults! It's no more difficult to replace the LCD screen in an M8 than it is to replace a screen on an iPhone. I don't know if any of the people you mentioned above offer this sort of service now, but I predict that as more and more digital Leica M cameras go out of warranty that 3rd party service will become more prevalent. Youxin may have to hire a couple of sharp electronic techs but I think this service will definitely be forthcoming. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted February 7, 2014 Share #52 Posted February 7, 2014 I don’t think completely dismantling the M8 is quite the same as opening up an iPhone. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdsheepdog Posted February 7, 2014 Share #53 Posted February 7, 2014 Well, considering Lucas (the infamous prince of darkness of BLMC days:eek:) is a major supplier of avionics, I think I'd prefer Leica... They made the electrics for the Merlin engine in the Spitfire, too, which makes the RAF victory in the Battle of Britain even more remarkable. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Londonmember Posted February 7, 2014 Share #54 Posted February 7, 2014 They made the electrics for the Merlin engine in the Spitfire, too, which makes the RAF victory in the Battle of Britain even more remarkable. Hey... lay off Lucas... My Triumph GT6 is 40 years old and still going very nicely thank you. In fact I just swapped out a worn out AC Delco distributor for a nice solid Lucas one..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted February 7, 2014 Share #55 Posted February 7, 2014 My Morgan 4/4 used up 5 Lucas alternators before I switched to a French Ford one - which was still running ten years later when I (stupidly) sold the car. I won’t go into the Mini 1100 which I bough new and was arguably the worst car I ever saw -and the electrics were worse… Beating even my friend’s Guilietta 1300 in the race to the electric bottom… Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted February 7, 2014 Share #56 Posted February 7, 2014 Maybe just print them? Maybe not at the level of "make at home your own 8 bit microprocessor",,, ,,, but in Italy I know for sure of a little "silicon fab", not bigger than a decent workshop for precision mechanics, with machinery not in M€ range, which makes ICs for cheap musical devices... components that, in comparision with state of the art microelectronics, are 4 or 5 generations behind... clearly, there is a market and an economic into : it isn't nonsense to imagine that, in 25 years or so, such a concern could be, in theory, capable of replicate the circuitry of a M8,,, who knows ? Well, I'll see when will be in my '80s... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheshireCat Posted February 8, 2014 Share #57 Posted February 8, 2014 Maybe just print them? Physical packaging apart, most chips can be emulated on FPGA. Download your brand new Commodore 64 "hardware" here: Syntiac pages - FPGA-64 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaques Posted February 8, 2014 Share #58 Posted February 8, 2014 i hate to be labelled a cynic... I call it realism... but the way things are going the question is whether there will be any humans functioning in 50 years seems more pertinent and to the point than worrying about if cameras will still work... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenPatterson Posted February 8, 2014 Share #59 Posted February 8, 2014 Well that's cast rather a gloom over the evening... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted February 8, 2014 Share #60 Posted February 8, 2014 Physical packaging apart, most chips can be emulated on FPGA.Download your brand new Commodore 64 "hardware" here: Syntiac pages - FPGA-64 Absolutely true... but packaging is critical if you want to make the "clone" of components inside a digital camera Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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