Stop-gap measure

Stop-gap measures are scenarios where limited resources are available, but yet there is just enough to work with as a temporary fix. Some "stop-gaps" though can also refer to a less expensive solution that ensures near-permanent use.
Examples of stop-gaps
Automobiles
*Hazard warning flashers
*Spare tire
Electronics
*Sega 32X, a controversial product intended as a stop-gap accessory, but replaced by the Sega Saturn (see below)
*non-rechargeable batteries (this is because non-rechargeable batteries aren't recommended for every day use)
*Atari 2600 video game console (see below)
Financial and money
*Coins, especially ones that are less than a US dollar (or other fractional country currency) are usually given as change, in which this is often just a stop-gap until one is able to add it up to whole (integer) units of paper money, or an ATM deposit.
*Loans are often intended to be a stop-gap solution to immediate payment of something when somebody doesn't have the time to come up with the money to buy the product or service; or when somebody is too impatient to obtain the product.
**interest rates are paid to loans at certain time intervals, as a stop-gap countermeasure before full payment of the loan, in which the providers of the loan need some source of income for their customers.
**Pawn shops facilitate submission of physical possessions (ones of relatively high monetary value) in exchange for a loan, except that the one who wants the item(s) back has to pay a greater price than the money given for temporary exchange.
**A lease is a term used to enable short-to-long-term usage of property, but at the fraction of the price of full ownership of a product.
Legal
*A citizen's arrest is a stop-gap measure when real police aren't available to arrest a suspect.
*loopholes are taken advantage of as a stop-gap measure sometimes.
*Ultra Games was created as a stop-gap to Konami's annual NES game release limit until Nintendo got less strict about it.
illegal:
*Prostitution is sometimes done as a stop-gap measure to make money off of sexual desire.
Product manufacturing and marketing
:Not to be confused with commercial failures
Automobiles:
*When airbags were first installed into some cars, they were only an option at first, and some models also went from no airbags, to mandatory airbags without any model years in between where they were only optional. This was a common stop-gap measure to be able to grandfather pre-manfactured vehicles to sell with some profit to help offset the cost of airbag installation to future models, even though models where airbags were only optional had some external provisions for airbag support, seeing as support for airbags was an integral part of the main structure of the vehicles, in a way where cars made before airbags came along lacked that structural reinforcement for airbag support.
*Chrysler Corporation has had some stop-gap measures in some of their products.
**The Chrysler Town And Country minivan only lasted for one model-year on the first generation design, of which was the 1990 model year, in which repurposing the first generation vehicle body for the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager minivans was done as a stop-gap measure before the 1991 model year for this model would almost immediately replace it as a second generation body. This was done to repurpose an already introduced vehicle as a "luxury" minivan sporting some simulated woodgrain akin to the station wagon market of which the station wagon version of the Chrysler Town and Country was being phased out in favor of a minivan to bear the name. This was done to save some costs for Chrysler which was just emerging out of bankruptcy.
**The Dodge Neon was slated for discontinuation in the 2005 model year, however an abundance of unsold Dodge Neons led to a movement to market these unsold "2005" models as 2006 models. This was done as a stop-gap measure to allow for a delay of the marketing for the Neon's replacement vehicle, the Dodge Caliber which would be introduced as a 2007 model.
**The Jeep Wrangler skipped the 1996 model year, due to a combination of slow sales, monetary constraints, and non-compliance to the law that 1996 model years had to include airbags, in which "1995" model years of the Jeep Wrangler continued to be marketed as late as mid-1996 as "new vehicles" even with some changes to the 1995 models in the 1996 calendar year, of which led to addition of airbags being delayed into the 1997 model year. This was done as a stop-gap measure to market some Jeeps to buyers who yearned for them.
**The Dodge Dakota has been involved with lots of stop-gap measures of manufacturing.
***The 1991 Dodge Dakota pickup truck had the same general front grille as 1991 to 1996 models, except that early 1991 models had sealed-beam headlights instead of composite headlights, so as to be a stop-gap measure to ensure more economical use of parts for the car while composite headlights were being rolled out of the factory since cost constraints forced some continued use of sealed beams, until mid-1991 model years were fitted with composite headlights, in which resulted in a unique front end for 1991 models. Also, the turn signal lenses on the right and left were solid yellow on models with sealed beams, but were half-yellow and half-clear on models with composite headlights, so as to extend the apparent headlight size on subsequent models. Apparently, budget constraints for part redesign, combined with abundant availability of leftover sealed beams, as well as existence of most parts from pre-1991 models continuing use is what led to this anomaly.
***The Dodge Dakota was known as the "Ram Dakota" between the 2010 to 2011 model years, and was just a stop-gap until its discontinuation, in which the "DODGE" emblem would be repurposed even for the change of make name.
*Ford has had some stop-gap measures in product manufacturing:
**The Ford F-150 design generation made since 1996 was re-marketed as a "heritage" model for the 2004 model year, since there were still lots of buyers of the older F-150s even though a redesign of the F-150 for the 2004 model year was boxier, and had loop door handles, instead of lift-up door handles.
**The 2-door Escort was renamed to the ZX2, as a stop-measure to briefly continue marketing of this obsolete car platform to match the ZXx nomenclature created by the Ford Focus product lineup, of which 2003 was when the ZX2 was discontinued.
**The Ford Bronco manufactured between the 1992 to 1996 model years had a semi-removable hardtop, of which a few alterations such as using special bolts requiring special tools for removal and removal of instructions associated with top-removal from the owner manual were tactically chosen so as to be a stop-gap measure to repurpose the so-called "removable hardtop" as a critical component to be compatible with a redesigned body based on the 1992 to 1995 Ford F-150 since an abundance of "removable tops" made for 1987 to 1991 Ford Broncos would be repurposed so as to save costs on manufacture of Broncos before discontinuation. Other accommodations that mandated the top to no longer be removable were a CHMSL (center-mount brake light), as well as 3-point seatbelts for the backseat since mounting the higher part of the 3-point seatbelts to the "removable top" would be less costly than including an internal rollcage to ensure continued removability of the top, of which declining sales for SUVs with removable tops has made it a moot point to encourage top removal.
*GM has had their share of stop-gaps:
**The 2004 model of the Chevrolet S-10 was only available as a crew-cab pickup truck, of which an abundance of unsold crew cab models led to them being available as the only trim for the 2004 model year while the regular and extended cab models disappeared since they sold in greater numbers, in which this was a stop-gap measure to market an abundant product to consumers into discontinuation of the Chevy S-10. Interestingly, 2004 was also the first model year for the Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck which would be the replacement model for the regular and extended cab models of the S-10, in which crew cab Colorado pickups delayed introduction to sell off the final model year of the 4-door S-10s so as to avoid internal competition for the company.
**The Chevrolet Classic was the renamed version of previous design generations of the Chevrolet Malibu for rental car fleets, in which this is common practice, since an abundance of unsold Malibus from previous generations has lead to repurposing them as "separate models" since this is a stop-gap measure to sell out an obsolete product.
**The Chevrolet K5 Blazer was changed to the R/V designation to avoid confusion with the overlap of production with the C/K designation between the 1987 to 1991 model years, this was a stop-gap since this bodystyle would eventually be redesigned to resemble the GMT400 platform.
Electronics:
*The Atari 2600 had many stop-gap manufacturing practices that led to the video game crash of 1983:
**The Atari 2600 version of the video game Halloween would later be labelled with masking tape with ink, rather than a
**The Atari 2600 version of Pacman suffered from having lackluster graphics processing, and flickering as a result of having multiple "ghosts" appearing within a second having 4 ghost sprites "for the price of one". However this game sold poorly and was considered the most controversial of the Atari 2600 titles, aside of ET The Extra Terrestrial, in which video game companies were under pressure to rush design of the video game into the holiday season so as to have a product to presumably sell in big numbers, and the lackluster Pacman port for the Atari 2600 would ultimately be bundled with subsequent Atari 2600 consoles so as to clear out an abundant supply of that cartridge as much as possible.
*The 160GB iPod Classic (revision 3) with a hard drive has been sold at the Apple Store since 2009, and as of 2014 has remained virtually unchanged and is still sold as a "new" product. The reason for this is because of a big discrepancy between supply and demand, in which an abundance of iPod Classics, and low demand for the product has led to a long production run, in which this has become a stop-gap measure to continue selling this product with a hard drive, so as to avoid internal competition with a potential release of a 128GB flash memory iPod Touch (since 160GB hard drives have more storage capacity), since this has both spared manufacturing resources of iPods, as well as ensured a good profit margin for the product lineup. Eventually, Apple may discontinue this product to make way for 128GB flash memory models.
*Nintendo has had some stop-gap measures in their product marketing.
**The world famous video game Super Mario Bros. would be bundled with subsequent sales of the NES video game console so, and was bundled with Duck Hunt, so as to include some unsold NES light gun video game accessories as bundles with some NES consoles. Super Mario Bros. 3 would have a similar dilemma of having lots of unsold game carts leftover, even though they were selling like hotcakes, in which Nintendo would bundle Super Mario Bros. 3 carts with more subsequent NES consoles in which would ensure some marketing movement of excess inventory of video game cartridges, in which other dilemmas of excess NES carts and accessories would market an extended lifetime of the 8-bit NES even as far as being as far as overlapping the majority of the product cycle of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which itself was bundled with Super Mario World for similar reasons of excess product inventory. This would be a stop-gap measure to make people think they "got more for their money", in which led to many owners having duplicate copies of games when they ended up buying the game console again in moments of their consoles failing.
*Sega had lots of stop-gap measures, similar to Atari, but its just a coincidence that controllers for the Genesis actually worked with the Atari 2600 mentioned above.
**The Sega 32X was manufactured in an effort to encourage more sales of the aging 16-bit Sega Genesis of which marketing it as an "add-on" would ensure a longer lifespan for an aging 16-bit console since 32-bit quality games for the 32X would presumably ensure a longer product marketing life, but there was a problem, the 32X required its own AC adapter, and some extra cable "jumpers" as well as some "spacers" to fit in the cartridge slot of the Sega Genesis. However, factors such as a lackluster library of games (looking more 16-bit than 32-bit) for the 32X, as well as superior ports of 32X games like Doom being on other consoles, the stand-alone nature of the Sega Saturn which was released months later (along with better quality games) all left the 32X no chance to be successful; of which it was just meant to be a stop-gap product for Sega anyhow. But this commercial failure would later get a cult following.
Highways and traffic
*road reconstruction
*detour
*Sometimes two-lane expressways are built as a stop-gap measure to relieve traffic congestion, but within a lesser budget than construction of a 4-lane divided expressway, in which sometimes traffic levels sometimes don't warrant 4-lane capacity.
Medical
*Life support
*medical tape
**band-aid (or bandage)
*Quarantine (means many types of stop-gap measures that mandate separation of groups)
Miscellaneous
*detour route
*External batteries for recharging mobile devices
*duct tape, for lots of applications, in which it is alleged to "fix everything", though its limitations question that claim.
*Repurposing is done as an environmentalist stop-gap measure to ensure that users of items both keep the environment clean, ensure some savings of their money, as well as avoid penalty fines for improper disposal of items.
*Sometimes, the third wheel (or the fifth wheel) of a couple is used as a stop-gap until the "third wheel" has a partner of his/her own.
* has a variety of stop-gap measures for the articles on the website.
**for example, a template like this:
**Also, Deletion voting for articles is a stop-gap measure used for articles that are deemed to not belong.
Stop gaps in popular culture
*In the film Cinderella, the nanny transformed a pumpkin into a horsedrawn carriage as well as some other amenities for Cinderella. However, it was said that "At the stroke of midnight, the spell will be broken", in which it implied that the amenities provided to Cinderella were only a stop-gap measure.
*MacGyver was a TV series which involved lots of stop-gap solutions, in which were known as MacGyverisms. MacGyver often had stop-gap solutions to problems he faced.

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