Packing an SSD

I once received a chip for a Honeywell industrial temperature controller like that. The box had similar dimensions, and then two more boxes and loose paper filler, a static-free bag, and eventually the chip on a piece of foam. At least it wasn't packed at one end of the box.

As a retirement present I was given a Sony radio alarm that kept accurate time by receiving the broadcast time signal. It had the clock radio unit itself, and a small pod containing aerials and their electronics at the end of a piece of wire, so that it could be placed at just over a metre and a half from the radio itself, for the best reception. I placed it on a nail in the wall, a bit above head height. One day I managed to hook the wire with my arm while reaching for something and the pod landed with a thud on the bedside cabinet. I put it back and the radio worked, but after that fall it had stopped receiving the time signal, and when I shook the pod there was a little rattle of something loose inside. I took the pod apart, and there was a tiny black thing loose inside, and a careful search of the circuit board showed that it was the body of a transistor where its wires were still in place on the board.

I knew that there was a Sony dealer in town, so I made a note of the radio model, the ID on the pod and the transistor number marked on the circuit board, and I went along. The man in the shop couldn't have been more helpful. He looked up the pod reference, checked availability, and apologised that it was a discontinued item. However his reference book identified the circuit board inside it, and he checked that, and it was also a discontinued item. The components on the board were listed though, and the transistor number I gave him was in stock in the warehouse. I paid him the price he quoted (£5), and he said he would get it sent to me.

When it arrived the transistor itself was about 2mm across, mounted in a moulded plastic case. It was delivered by courier in a box about 30cm on each side with lots of space filling contents. The package and the delivery must have cost more that I paid for the contents. I did replace the nail in the wall with a hook, to prevent it falling again. I soldered the transistor into its place on the board, and it has worked happily keeping the clock to time ever since. That repair was 25 years ago.

It sounds as though they could have fitted several new radios in the box.

The sand most transistors are made from is essentially free

As I recall, it needs to be refined a bit, using rather expensive machinery. The equipment and the environment to make transistors and ICs is even more expensive. Each transistor must make a contribution towards that enormous capital outlay.

But yes, the fiver was almost all the wages of the various people who got it to the OP.

Only people cost money

If robots made everything, everything would be free.

material free? cost of the robots free? premises on which the robots work free? Getting the product from factory to the customer free?

Yes. God doesn't. for example, charge for coal.

Yes. Robots dont need wages to make robots

Yes. Huge tracts of land where robots could live are worthless for humans

Yes. Robots dont charge waqes

Ultimately money is at the cost level a medium of exchange for human labour. Robots would simply trade energy instead :-)

The Left always confuses money and wealth. People cost money . Robots create wealth. People who cost money and create or facilitate no wealth creation, are parasites

I have my doubts that we have the knowledge yet to make machinery routinely last even tens of years without maintenance or breakdown, let alone the hundreds of years of MTBF needed if *everything* was made by robots. We've been lucky with some astronomical probes, but not all of them.

and what would you make out of coal?

Materials are needed. I doubt if you'd make Robots out of coal.

Robots can maintain robots.

Eb ergy. Phenolic resin. Whatever.

God doesn't charge for *any* natural resource.