List of hardware bugs that affected consoles?

[Jess Ragan]

Regarding the extra RAM in the Trash-80s, computer manufacturers still do this! Intel made a Core Solo which was essentially a dual core PC with one of the cores disabled. Evidently it's cheaper to make one computer model and hobble some of the units for low-end users than it is to manufacture two separate computer lines.

[+FujiSkunk]

Hard drive manufacturers did this as well, and maybe still do. If a particular model or series of drive was offered in different sizes, the odds were good it was the same platters inside the case, with only a change in firmware to dictate how much of that space was offered to the customer. In the hard drive testing department of my company, those firmwares were very closely guarded trade secrets.