Spectre / Meltdown

If you have a way to guarantee zero bugs in any nontrivial software, the industry will beat a path to your door. Given you apparently can?t even recognize a SQL injection vulnerability, I don?t think there?s much chance of that happening any time soon.

Bit more electronics in a car than just a window winder. At any rate I?ll be trusting druck?s understanding of the costs and lifecycle or automotive software over yours.

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Reply to
Richard Kettlewell
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How much embedded programming have either of you done? I spent 5 years at it.

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Look. My position is, and always has been, that *once the software has been written*, the cost of deploying it is almost zero.

Neither you nor Druck have come up with more than in his case, proof by assertion, and in your case, appeal to (his) authority, as to why this is a false statement.

I am truly disappointed in you. I worked in manufacturing for a decade before I stared writing firmware. I know all about product costs, and amortising up front costs over productions runs, and I know whereof I speak.

Even in your far narrower experience, the upgrade cost of a new linux application release is almost nothing. Apt-get update and apt-get upgrade and then carry on and do something else. is all it takes.

Even a first time installations of linux is merely an hour compared with the man millennia that have gone into writing it.

As far as upgrades go, how much is really necessary in a standalone application? There are industrial applications running on Dos 2.2 out there. The world runs on legacy COBOL and RPG that hasn't changed in decades.

The mathematics of costings are very simple. Per unit cost is upfront design cost divided by the production run, plus the opportunity cost of implementing the hardware solution.

If as in the case of generic CPU enabled 'things' the production run is in the millions, and its less than a man years worth of programming effort, then the upfront cost is hardware and implementation time plus a millionth of a man year. Or about 5 man minutes or less per item manufactured. (assuming 8 hour days, and 200 working days in a year)

It takes a lot less than that to flash some ROM, EEAROM EEPROM or what ever the fashionable hardware is this year. So, in such a case, the total cost of the firmware, installed is about 9 man minutes, or less. And even at the inflated rates that coders are paid, that's not more than pence.

And to re-flash it is probably less than 4 man minutes for an 'upgrade'

Now ask druck to respond as to what in this reasoning is wrong, and how I managed to survive in hardware design and software design for decades if I was so wrong about costings?

I repeat, the point is that digital hardware is cheap and software *once written* is even cheaper. Which is why we are all managing the world of technology through less than ideal interfaces of touch screens connected by wires rather than by pedals, knobs and buttons connected by cables and hydraulic pipes.

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

That would be something like 5 dollars per every single item. Fortunately running your assumed numbers comes to a lot less than that.

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Reply to
Axel Berger

I've spent most of the last 33 years either writing it or testing it, in the aviation, automotive, defence, accessibility, data security and most recently motorsport industries.

But hey, you obviously know best, this is the internet after all.

---druck

Reply to
druck

Well, I?ve been contributing continuously to our product?s firmware for about half of the last decade, and intermittently since 2003 or so.

I think I?ve covered it in previous posts. Our product is subject to various standards-compliance and security requirements and these evolve continuously. Even just to stay still in the marketplace we have to respond with new firmware versions from time to time. This isn?t an unusual situation for anything with safety or security aspects and I?m not sure what?s so hard to believe about it.

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Reply to
Richard Kettlewell

And druck has still failed to refute those numbers preferrring to waffle on about his experience writing - but never costing, code, or running companies that sold it.

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

So you spend more money on developing the code. How does that apply to the cots of IMPLEMENTING it, once written?

You haven't addressed a single one of my points.

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I have, twice, you?re just not reading the answers.

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Reply to
Richard Kettlewell

No, you haven't.

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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I think you are focusing on the development cost only. Let's say it is 5 000

000 for the first release. Then you sell 1 000 000 for 10 per item. How much is the cost? Then you have a new version that costs you 1 000 000 to release and you sell another 1 000 000 for 10 per item. How much is the cost?

Let us think further. To flash an item and test (for sure it is automated testing) it costs perhaps less than 1 and it is included in this 10.

OK so far? and further - you have let's say 20 employees with total cost of

100000,- per month. How much is the cost?

And there is much more to add, but in general I do not see any point to estimate isolated price based on cost. Even the formula given as example by The Natural Philosopher is to estimate the potential revenue. Price is never based only on development and production cost. Simply said price is based on what customer is ready to pay. If you make a revenue, it is worth investing.

Reply to
Deloptes

No I wasn't, that's NP trying to move the goal posts of the discussion. I was countering his assertion that fly-by-wire throttles and electronic controlled gear boxes are used because they are cheaper than the older mechanical systems.

Both the electronics and software control are vastly more expensive to develop and have higher per unit costs than simple throttle cables, or a mechanical gear linkages.

The reason they are used are to increase fuel economy, reduce emissions, and to give the easier driving experience you expect of a modern car.

Most people would find a 30+ year old car without all these electronic aids very difficult to drive, without the ECU compensating for engine temperatures, atmospheric conditions, fuel quality and load.

Find someone old enough to remember having to use the choke on a cold morning!

---druck

Reply to
druck

The higher per unit costs rather surprises me, especially if you factor in assembly costs and maintenance over a reasonable period.

They do all of that but the really big change since the 1970s is in longevity - a 1970 car with 100K miles on the clock in 1980 was a rust-bucket and a minor miracle if it passed the MOT. A 2010 car with 250K miles on it looks fine today, runs well and will almost certainly pass the next few tests with little trouble. Some of that is down to materials and some to engine electronics.

Ever driven with manual advance/retard ? I used to leave it set to full advance as an anti-theft measure - if anyone had ever tried and got it to fire it would have put the kick in kickstart.

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Reply to
Ahem A Rivet's Shot

I am not that convinced. It is arguable the least. I am no fan of electronics in the cars, but I know they replace all kinds of mechanical systems not only for fuel efficiency.

Reply to
Deloptes

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