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How did we ever get into the situation where we cannot repair our own stuff—stuff that we have actually purchased ourselves? The situation that we've now reach

How did we ever get into the situation where we cannot repair our own stuff—stuff that we have actually purchased ourselves? The situation that we've now reached where technology is now being locked up and out of sight in large corporations is frankly damn disgraceful and we really need to act and to do something about it ASAP. This new trend is deskilling the workforce and population generally and it's not in the national interest for society to allow this to continue. …And that's just for starters. There was a time early in my career when anyone who purchased any hi-tech equipment would have expected to receive a comprehensive operational manual with the equipment and optionally a proper service manual with a comprehensive description of equipment's operation and procedures to fix it. And of course spare parts would have been available as a matter of course. It was so common that no one would have ever thought it possible not to be able to get maintenance manuals. My introduction to electronics and technology generally was by way of equipment manuals and I learned a great deal from them. Home appliances such as radios and televisions often had the circuit diagrams inside the back of the case at the time of purchase. Mechanics manuals were always available for cars and other vehicles and so on. I recall quintessential examples of this with manuals from companies such as Tektronix whose oscilloscopes manuals were a remarkable sight—they were truly wonderful. For the younger generation who has never experienced what is was actually like to be able to get detailed information from a manufacturer then download this Tektronix oscilloscope 7834 manual dated 1977 from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/tektronix_7834 https://archive.org/details/tektronix_7834. (I actually purchased several of these instruments so I've firsthand knowledge.) Even if you don't understand a word of this manual nevertheless even just a glance at it will show you what we've actually lost as a society by manufacturer's refusing to release information. It's a nonsense when manufacturers claim that they shouldn't have to release proprietary information as it would aid competitors. Clearly, the release of this information by Tektronix never affected its bottom line. In fact, this instrument reigned quite supreme at what it did for years. In fact, hiding circuit information and obfuscating source code has been detrimental for security and other reasons. If Volkswagen had not obfuscated its embedded code then it wouldn’t have faced the multibillion dollar fines that it's had to endure. BTW, IBM provided circuit schematics and BIOS source code for its first PCs—the XT and AT. Oh, how times have changed for the worse.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
>How did we ever get into the situation where we cannot repair our own stuff—stuff that we have actually purchased ourselves? People purchased items that they cannot repair, for myriad reasons, and did not purchase items they could repair. I don't know anyone that wants to fix their phone, they want to walk into a store with a broken one, and walk out with a working one and restore their settings. That's a relatively small value item, but same applies for home appliances and automobiles.
- hilbert42 8y ago
  That was always been the case. My question was rhetorical. The reason is multifold and complex but a key factor occurred in the 1980s when companies like MicroPro International/WordStar found that they could license software and obfuscate its source at the same time and that this was to their advantage. Back in the 1980s I recall having a conversion with Seymour Rubinstein (of WordStar fame and one of the key pushers of software licensing) about these matters. I'm not implying that there's anything wrong with software licensing but that licensing 'extensions' have now gone way too far and they are having damaging impact on end users not to mention third parties as in the Volkswagen case.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  > People purchased items that they cannot repair, for myriad reasons The primary reason being that they are 97% of the available items, forcing any repair shop to get by through fixing the 3%. This results in a tug-of-war between repair shops being too far away (fewer of them) or too expensive, closing in on the price of a new disposable item. Right-to-fix isn't about me being an expert on how to fix things, it's about me being able to get things fixed by someone other than the manufacturer. This increases the number of repairmen, which increases the attractiveness of repairable items in a virtuous circle. edit: also in a lot of these manufacturer repair situations you're talking about mailing the item somewhere, not walking to a store and walking out with a new one. A world in which you arrive at a familiar repair shop, they transfer your data to a loner phone, and you get your phone back in a day or two and rsync the diff back - that doesn't sound radically different for the customer than the status quo, just radically cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

lotsofpulp 8y ago

>How did we ever get into the situation where we cannot repair our own stuff—stuff that we have actually purchased ourselves? People purchased items that they cannot repair, for myriad reasons, and did not purchase items they could repair. I don't know anyone that wants to fix their phone, they want to walk into a store with a broken one, and walk out with a working one and restore their settings. That's a relatively small value item, but same applies for home appliances and automobiles.

hilbert42 8y ago
That was always been the case. My question was rhetorical. The reason is multifold and complex but a key factor occurred in the 1980s when companies like MicroPro International/WordStar found that they could license software and obfuscate its source at the same time and that this was to their advantage. Back in the 1980s I recall having a conversion with Seymour Rubinstein (of WordStar fame and one of the key pushers of software licensing) about these matters. I'm not implying that there's anything wrong with software licensing but that licensing 'extensions' have now gone way too far and they are having damaging impact on end users not to mention third parties as in the Volkswagen case.
pessimizer 8y ago
> People purchased items that they cannot repair, for myriad reasons The primary reason being that they are 97% of the available items, forcing any repair shop to get by through fixing the 3%. This results in a tug-of-war between repair shops being too far away (fewer of them) or too expensive, closing in on the price of a new disposable item. Right-to-fix isn't about me being an expert on how to fix things, it's about me being able to get things fixed by someone other than the manufacturer. This increases the number of repairmen, which increases the attractiveness of repairable items in a virtuous circle. edit: also in a lot of these manufacturer repair situations you're talking about mailing the item somewhere, not walking to a store and walking out with a new one. A world in which you arrive at a familiar repair shop, they transfer your data to a loner phone, and you get your phone back in a day or two and rsync the diff back - that doesn't sound radically different for the customer than the status quo, just radically cheaper and more environmentally friendly.