Actually that’s not strictly true. Test methodology was “see if it worked and ship”. Many many of the computers were returned and replaced immediately. And a lot of the new ones you got were the broken ones which were sent back and the chips replaced. I’ve seen a new one which still didn’t work which had been reworked at least once and sold as new again.
My father had a nice business for a few years doing adhoc repairs and then started his own PC import business in the end with the cash he earned fixing people’s stuff. That was a world of difference.
Agree with your comments about affordability. As you say about Eastern Europe, even the clones were more expensive I understand.
It's not that unique in the computer business. I used to build PCs for a shop during the 90s internet craze. When we got a box of Quantum Bigfoot HDDs we'd be lucky if half of them worked. Someone who cared about quality wouldn't put that crap in a computer. But it was cheap. The soundcards we sold were so cheap they were cut diagonally to save on PCB material.
Though this shop just did it for profit margin. Sinclair did it to make computers available to the masses.
Yes, it's very common. Even companies like Intel sometimes test a CPU at umpteen GHz, then retest the ones that fail at umpteen/2 GHz and sell them at a lower price if they work reliably at the lower speed.
My father had a nice business for a few years doing adhoc repairs and then started his own PC import business in the end with the cash he earned fixing people’s stuff. That was a world of difference.
Agree with your comments about affordability. As you say about Eastern Europe, even the clones were more expensive I understand.