[canucker2016]

One story I heard was about Compaq and how their early PCs were over-engineered.

The floppy drives of early Compaq PCs were rated/tested for a really high number of insertions/ejections. You'd have to be doing nothing BUT inserting/ejecting floppies 24/7 to even get close to the rated limit.

Some beancounter at Compaq realizes they're overpaying. They lower the rated limit of insertions/ejections by a couple orders of magnitude and let the savings flow through to the profit line with the customer none the wiser. Didn't help against Dell and the other cheaper PC manufacturers though.

[jacquesm]

I remember their Deskpro line around that time. Insanely heavy.