On 15 Feb 2005 at 18:31, Dennis Haynes wrote:

> Probably a bean counter decision, ...

Right!

Engineering managers will kill just to be able to eliminate a few
wires, connectors and associated labor costs from their projects.

Printed circuit boards, integrated circuits, etc., have dramatically
lowered the cost of electronic devices, BUT the cost of physical
electrical connections remains high, especially in something like a
car (or large printer) which may have miles of copper wire in it.

An example of an attempt at reducing this cost is the foil on the
back of the Vanagon instrument cluster.  That's much cheaper than
discrete wire connections would have been.

//Jack
'85 GL