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> An Atari 800 is no longer useful? Machines wear out. If I can't get service manuals or replacement parts, then it's no longer useful, even for its original

by ken 8y ago

> An Atari 800 is no longer useful? Machines wear out. If I can't get service manuals or replacement parts, then it's no longer useful, even for its original purpose. I've thrown out more than a couple pieces of computer hardware, over the years, which were almost certainly 99% fine, but unrepairable. On ebay right now, I see 6 "Atari 800" machines. 1 is advertised as "working".

JohnFen 8y ago
> which were almost certainly 99% fine, but unrepairable Repairability is dependent on your skillset and interest, though. Aside from machines that used custom chips and those chips failing (and even then, you can usually replace those with modern tech combined with effort and ingenuity), I can't think of any old-school machines (and very few modern machines) that are actually unrepairable.
themodelplumber 8y ago
The model I'm presenting is not a "go buy an Atari 800" model. It's a counter-model to displace the shallow concept of normalized-market obsolescence. The best way to understand this thinking is to look at people who already employ it. Look at the people using fountain pens and Gregg shorthand in 2019. And did you hear about the Polish auto shop that was using a C64 well into the 21st century? We junk really, really good standalone ideas because human psychology determines that they don't fit into an emerging network of systems. This creates literal tons of waste at a personal and individual-business level and forces humans to think in unsustainable ways about what technology is and how it's used. We need new models to help us address the qualitative problems within the tech world.
- ken 8y ago
  My point was that, for a complex product like a computer, an individual consumer can't decide this. A shop still using a C64 is lucky that it didn't break -- or that there's plenty of other C64's for sale which broke in different ways, so they could be cannibalized for parts! I was happy with my C64, but the 1541 drive kept failing (even 25 years ago). As a user, I'm able to ignore network effects for the device's use. That's merely an inconvenience. I can't ignore network effects for repair and maintenance. That will turn it into a fancy paperweight. It's not like a pen and shorthand. Those I can use even if no company wants to support me. I could even make my own pen, without too much trouble, if somehow all pen companies went out of business next week.

by ken 8y ago

JohnFen 8y ago

> which were almost certainly 99% fine, but unrepairable Repairability is dependent on your skillset and interest, though. Aside from machines that used custom chips and those chips failing (and even then, you can usually replace those with modern tech combined with effort and ingenuity), I can't think of any old-school machines (and very few modern machines) that are actually unrepairable.

themodelplumber 8y ago

The model I'm presenting is not a "go buy an Atari 800" model. It's a counter-model to displace the shallow concept of normalized-market obsolescence. The best way to understand this thinking is to look at people who already employ it. Look at the people using fountain pens and Gregg shorthand in 2019. And did you hear about the Polish auto shop that was using a C64 well into the 21st century? We junk really, really good standalone ideas because human psychology determines that they don't fit into an emerging network of systems. This creates literal tons of waste at a personal and individual-business level and forces humans to think in unsustainable ways about what technology is and how it's used. We need new models to help us address the qualitative problems within the tech world.

ken 8y ago
My point was that, for a complex product like a computer, an individual consumer can't decide this. A shop still using a C64 is lucky that it didn't break -- or that there's plenty of other C64's for sale which broke in different ways, so they could be cannibalized for parts! I was happy with my C64, but the 1541 drive kept failing (even 25 years ago). As a user, I'm able to ignore network effects for the device's use. That's merely an inconvenience. I can't ignore network effects for repair and maintenance. That will turn it into a fancy paperweight. It's not like a pen and shorthand. Those I can use even if no company wants to support me. I could even make my own pen, without too much trouble, if somehow all pen companies went out of business next week.