A brief history of hardware epidemics
Living creatures aren’t the only things to be ravaged by epidemics. Computers, even Macs, can die prematurely when there are widespread manufacturing failures. I’d like to unearth a couple of mass graves from the past that have surely contributed to landfill around the world: capacitor plague and lead-free solder, and a recent problem with butterflies. Capacitor plague 1999-2007 Capacitors or ‘caps’ have a chequered history. Acting as temporary stores of electric charge, they’re used extensive