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An analogy that might work for most people: Cars? Intel is one of the manufacturers of engines, but they only make the literal engine block, maybe some piston
by mjevans 4y ago
An analogy that might work for most people:
Cars?
Intel is one of the manufacturers of engines, but they only make the literal engine block, maybe some pistons too. However cars have all those other tubes, wires, and side bits in the engine compartment and in the hidden parts of the body.
It's not the engine, but the specially sized and specially rated tubes around the engine. Those parts that everyone thought were dirt cheep, so people stopped making enough of them.
- missedthecue 4y agoThis is pretty good and helped me understand.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago> Those parts that everyone thought were dirt cheep, so people stopped making enough of them. Not only that, but because (in this analogy) tube making machines are very expensive, low-volume machines made by only a couple of companies in the world, take a long time to make, make only single very specific kind of tube each and take a long time to install and commission, you can't just up and start making more tubes. And on top of that, the machines cost so much and tube technology moves along so that if you're not careful, you may never turn a profit on the tubes at all if, by the time you're tooled up, you've missed the window of opportunity and no one wants that many old-style tubes anyway.