Back to Basics

Most caravan fridges claim to be able to run on 3 separate power sources, mains electric, gas and battery power. However, the control unit on many modern fridges are  a digital display that is operated by buttons that toggle to the required setting for the fridge. Wonderful and very simple until the 12volt supply to the control unit fails! The fridge will then shut down. In the "old days" the fridge was controlled by rotary switches that selected the power source and selected the temperature required. If gas was selected, a button was pushed and the gas function operated. All power sources operated independently and did not rely on any other power being available. I speak from experience, my battery charger failed, wrecked the battery so no 12 volts were available and no fridge! I had mains power and gas but no fridge. Are fridges and other equipment getting too complex and should we think about going back to basics?