20+ year old farm equipment. They are easy to use, simple to maintain, often repairable by the farmer on-site (with perhaps a trip to the store to buy a small part). I often found myself marvelling at the complex things that could be achieved by an arrangement of gears, such as the contraption on a square baler that wraps the bale with two pieces of twine and ties two perfectly tensioned knots that will hold the hay together in that shape for years.
Is this still true, or is it 20 years from when you started thinking about how good things used to be? I ask because somewhere in there I assume there is a period where ICs were introduced but all the kinks might not have been worked out. It maybe that I have the time scales wrong myself though.
I cannot speak to whether this is still true for modern farm equipment for two reasons. First, my family ran a small livestock operation and older machinery was more affordable to buy/run/repair and fulfilled our needs. Second, the farm has since been sold and now I'm a mere city boy.
Does IC mean integrated chips? I have certainly read that modern farm equipment is less repairable, and I would not be surprised if they played a role. But I don't claim any knowledge about that. I may also have the time scales wrong.
