Bruce Rubenstein wrote: > They have none of the old tooling, because the camera has been out > of production for years. Just to do an identical film camera would cost > just as much as to do a new camera - no cost savings.
Hmmm, I smell some trolling here, but I'll bite, just 'cause I'm a fun guy. ;-) Do you know with ~certainty~ that Pentax doesn't have the tooling? (By tooling, I mean injection molds for the plastic, diecasting molds for metal parts, jigs for the formed metal parts, etc., etc.) They might have dumped it years ago, especially if it had worn out. Or it might be sitting in boxes, perched on several pallets, in the middle of a warehouse somewhere. That does happen. Ask me about some of ~my~ company's old tooling.... If the tooling still existed and was still in reasonably good shape, Pentax (or an interested third party) could start cranking out Auto 110s if they believed it made business sense. Remember the Mingca? (Chinese K1000 knock-off, made using the old worn K1000 tooling, IIRC.) > Nothing personal and just a general observation: I don't think too many > people here have the slightest idea of how real products are designed, > developed, manufactured, supported, marketed or what any of this costs. Sounds like a ~guess~ rather than an observation. And probably a very ~good~ guess that there aren't too many on the list who have a full appreciation for the whole process, the costs, etc. I'd venture to say, though, that there are perhaps more folks on the list than you might think, who have a very good appreciation for the process of product design, development, manufacturing, marketing, support, and cost. (Gads, I'm quite sure I can't be the only one!) In the inimitable words of our good friend Peter from across the Big Pond, Toodle Pip! ;-) Bill Peifer Rochester, NY
