WHAT REALLY HAPPENS TO A PET WHEN IT ARRIVES IN THE UK.
The same as happens to all PETs when they arrive in the UK
QC - Quarantine Control.
Before shipment to the UK whether manufactured in the USA, Germany orJapan each individual sub assembly is 100% tested on burn in racks at high temperatures for several hours before assembly into its housing and then tested again. But after the rigours of a trip by air or sea across the atlantic, road freight from Europe or sea from the far east we feel we ought to test them before delivery to our Dealers.
Ideally we would like to burn in each individual unit for 4 hours and this we did in the puppy stage of PET but with average sales of 3000 units/ month that would be 12,000 hours and sales demands just would not allow the time or any additional costs.
Currently we 100% test all new products before release until reliability is proven and then batch test, but to no set formula. In the future we will continue to 100% test new, or particularly 'sensitive' models, but for proven product we will test to British Standard 6001. For those uninitiated people this sets guide lines as to the sample quantity to test from a given batch size and dictates the pass and fail level at a pre-determined'AQL'Acceptable Quality Level for that industry. If the sample fails then the batch has to be 100% tested - yes more delays dealer but hopefully a quality to the required standard in the electronics industry. This of course only dictates the pass or fail level, the tests carried out are as follows:
CPUs
Processors are subjected to a bootloader test - no not a 'kick up the khyber' but a device which has an inbuilt test program. This is clipped on to the 6502 processor
Just one of the excitements at the second international PET show
and initialises and runs itself thus removing the necessity for test disks and cassettes. Whilst any automatic test procedure is very effective it is only as good as the man who wrote it. There may well be routines which have been omitted and that is why we are keen for dealers to pass on end user comments in this sphere.
DISK DRIVES Disk drives are 100% performance tested. The test is loaded into the PET from the floppy disk being tested. The test diskette is replaced with a blank diskette in each drive and the PET then formats, writes and reads, scratches tracks and sectors across the whole of the disks surface on both drive units. For 8050 drives we have found through experience that it is far more reliable to use certified 77 track diskettes for this purpose. As a result of the inherent sensitivity of adjustment on 77 track drives it is possible that head alignment is effected due to the vibration during transit. However, our dealers are well aware ofthis and accept that they may have to realign disks before sale to the end user.