Kevin was here visiting last week and whenever he is
here, we have to do, change or fix something. We did get my computer better
organized and fixed the back door and then we tackled the cell phones. Kevin
thought that we could swap the SIM card from my older phone into the newer
higher tech touch phone I have been learning how to use all its features for
the last two months. That way I would have my old number with the upgraded
phone.
The old phone came apart easily and he had the SIM card
out in a flash. The newer phone was more difficult to take apart. We got the
back cover off and removed the battery only to find the circuit board and SIM
card were covered with a metal shield that was riveted on solid and impossible
to remove without damaging the circuit board. We quit at that point and I left
the phone in pieces for two days.
Yesterday I decided to put the new phone back together.
Getting it apart was nothing compared to putting it back together. Those tiny
little screws were nearly impossible to pick up with my average sized fingers
and then even more difficult to set them into the holes to refasten them. That
got me to wondering how in the world do the manufacturers build these things?
The components are miniscule and the screws have to be measured in millimeters.
I know they are put together with machines, but making a machine to pick and
insert these tiny components and screws and then programming the machines to do
all of those operations is mind boggling to me. I know just enough to
appreciate how complicated the tasks would be, but nowhere near enough to
imagine the minds that create the machines and the software to run them. I have
seen giant robots in car factories that assemble and weld automobiles and that
is complex, but those machines do not seem to be beyond reason. The machines
that put cell phones together must be designed and be built to have a fraction of
a millimeter tolerance. So that’s a fraction of less one-thousandth of an inch.
The whole phone fits in a hand and yet it has more memory
than you could not fit into a pickup truck 30 years ago. The processor does more
than a truck-sized processor those years ago and an Android phone can do
anything you could do on a desktop or laptop computer. Those who are more
dexterous than I am can use their stubby little thumbs to wail out messages
faster on those tiny screen virtual keyboards than I can with my large keyboard
on my laptop. All of this technology is available in a hand held device that
sells for a few hundred dollars or in my case, a reconditioned phone I bought
for twenty dollars at the Dollar General store in town. We live in a world of
wonder.
