> As silly as it is, professionals can't get good tools, because the
tooling is caught in the gravity well of more generic, mass market
products.
This also happened in hardware.
Back in the day we could design wide range devices using quite widely
available "mil-spec" semiconductors and components - a common
difference was in logic circuits where you had 74-series in consumer
and commercial (0 °C to 70 °C and −40 ° to 85 °C temperature ranges)
and milspec 54-series that would suffer −55 °C to 125 °C.
Following something in the 90s called the Perry initiative IIRC, the
rules changed to test-based performance that enhanced "market supply"
rather than prescribed manufacturing methods, so after STD-883 almost
all wide range components disappeared.
Sure if you're NASA or the US DoD you can get stuff made, but
increasingly everyone has to source from the same few commercial
suppliers. The upshot is that if you're organising an Antarctic
survey, or going into the desert it's almost impossible to kit our
with modern gear that won't fail. You're stuck trawling eBay for some
1980s Soviet stuff.
This also happened in hardware.
Back in the day we could design wide range devices using quite widely available "mil-spec" semiconductors and components - a common difference was in logic circuits where you had 74-series in consumer and commercial (0 °C to 70 °C and −40 ° to 85 °C temperature ranges) and milspec 54-series that would suffer −55 °C to 125 °C.
Following something in the 90s called the Perry initiative IIRC, the rules changed to test-based performance that enhanced "market supply" rather than prescribed manufacturing methods, so after STD-883 almost all wide range components disappeared.
Sure if you're NASA or the US DoD you can get stuff made, but increasingly everyone has to source from the same few commercial suppliers. The upshot is that if you're organising an Antarctic survey, or going into the desert it's almost impossible to kit our with modern gear that won't fail. You're stuck trawling eBay for some 1980s Soviet stuff.