Brakes Work, Bytes Fail

Newcastle Herald

Thursday July 13, 2006

Jeff Corbett

THE introduction of the new OSCAR trains being built at Broadmeadow has been delayed, we read this week, by problems with their braking computer software, and the retired engineer who phoned me wasn't at all happy about that.

What was wrong, he wanted to know, with the Westinghouse brake system patented by George Westinghouse in 1872? The system used compressed air and was adapted just a few years later to apply the brakes in the event of a brake failure, which seems to me to be a useful adaptation.

So the boffins have ignored 134 years of faithful service in order to involve computers and, what do you know, the brakes don't work! He was in the grip of passion at the outset of the call and by this stage my caller was off the scale, but he did have a little further to go.

And when a Sydney ferry crashed a few years ago they blamed the computerised steering system! Whatever happened to a helm and a rudder!

My caller, who I hope has taken a few deep breaths, is right. Our cleverness is outstripping itself, leaving us at the mercy of technology that has no master.

The new line about discarding a piece of computerised whizz-bangery because it's too expensive to repair, just buy a new one, is the new lie the problem is that the repairer can't repair it at any price. Often now the repairer's job is determining whether it's a software or hardware problem and replacing whichever.

With your PC, for example, the repairer often doesn't repair the fault or even replace just the faulty component. He replaces entire sections until the device works, and you're lucky if it was his first guess, the motherboard, or even his second, the hard drive. No more identifying the faulty resistor and soldering in a new one.

Where's a technician's job satisfaction when he's been so defeated by technology?

There's less satisfaction in even my shed these days. Until just a few years ago I'd get most appliances working again, drilling out the screws with the weird heads that were supposed to deny me access, poking about here and there with a circuit tester, resoldering various soldered joints, tapping this and that with a screwdriver and carrying whatever it was back to the house for the triumphant announcement.

Such triumph is a rare animal now.

I remember with nostalgia fixing the car. I'd file the points, set the gap and adjust the engine timing over a leisurely hour, and whenever any member of the family was in earshot I'd exclaim how lucky she or he was to have such a clever husband or father. I was always mildly surprised when the motor started up for the big test and always boisterously proud when it ran better.

Now even my oldest car has computerised ignition. Nothing to adjust. In desperation I've checked the timing a couple of times, hoping for a problem, but not a whisker's movement.

This is all well and good, but when the computerisation packs it in, which it does without warning, the old points ignition seems suddenly very useful. Even a half-handy git like me could fix the old ignition by torchlight, but not even the most modern mechanic surrounded by flashing machines can fix a car's computer.

Take my work. We used to type our reports on typewriters, and when a typewriter was playing up we used another while it was serviced. Our copy was set by linotype operators, who used a spare if the machine was playing up, and printed by a press attended by tradesmen who could disassemble and reassemble it with ease.

Today I use a keyboard and screen to type into a computer with massive capabilities, and life's rosy until it stops. When it stops, I stop, and I stop for as long as it stops. The press is controlled by a computer, not, as some might tell you, by computer operators. Indeed, sometimes when such a technologically advanced press stops no one knows why it stops and when it starts again no one knows why it started again!

We don't seem to accept the possibility that the old or current technology is better than the new. There must be a point at which the latest technology takes us backwards instead of forward.

jcorbett@theherald.com.au