4 ms·

The repairability score of 7/10 seems unfair. Opening up this computer could kill you! Surely that deserves a 0/10 ?

julespitt 13y ago
The bane of my childhood was hysterical, clueless adults warning about how I could die from opening anything with a CRT in it... yet here I am!
- joosters 13y ago
  Yes, that must mean it was all lies and misinformation. Thanks for setting us straight on that.
- epo 13y ago
  Fascinating. Please share your insights about drink driving, we'd love to know.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 13y ago
  It's too bad nobody has CRT's anymore. We used to build these in high school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibW_x8lWWFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibW_x8lWWFM. Yes, it's entirely as awesome as it looks.
- bri3d 13y ago
  For all the sarcastic responses to this post, I can't find a single record of a death by CRT. I found lots of references to people accidentally touching the HV side of CRTs and receiving a painful shock but none of the shock causing any lasting issues. Death by CRT is definitely possible in theory and the lack of real-world examples could be an issue of shoddy reporting (i.e. cardiac arrest due to electric shock minus a CRT as the specific reason) but I'd think think that across the millions and millions of CRTs sold there'd be at least one concrete report of a death. Does anyone know of any?
  - tibbon 13y ago
    Same with guitar tube amps. "Deadly voltage", but I can't find many/any instances of people actually getting killed from tube gear repair.
- billforsternz 13y ago
  Send out the Mythbusters bat-signal
pasbesoin 13y ago
You need(ed) to drain any lingering charge in the CRT. It was easier and safer to do this with a dedicated tool than e.g. with a screwdriver, but the latter worked for one-off jobs. Ground the probe or screwdriver, then slide it under the rubber cup shielding the... good-grief, I've forgotten which. Anode connection of the tube. The tube/circuit could/can carry considerable charge for a significant period of time. Simply unplugging the mains power lead was not sufficient protection for a person working inside the case. But, the case was "easily" open-able -- aside from complaints about the non-standard screw heads and difficulty separating the halves if you didn't have a tool to insert into the seam and pry them apart. And once you were inside, things were pretty accessible. There was even an entire cottage industry documenting and recommending/selling replacements particularly for analog components on the power board, some of which were perhaps a bit under-spec-ed in the original designs and prone to noticeable deterioration as well as outright, total failure.
- joosters 13y ago
  I'm not saying it was impossible to safely open these machines. After all, there were plenty of people safely working in TV repair shops. If you knew what you were doing and weren't sloppy, you would be perfectly safe. The problem is, not everyone would know what they were doing. At least with current tech, the worst that can happen is you ruin your computer and not your life.
  - pasbesoin 13y ago
    Well, perhaps in a meta sense, the older designs "repaired" (us) by thinning the herd. ;-) One the one hand, I take your point. On the other, people wrote books documenting the whole thing and you could replace that defective capacitor yourself. (Significantly less expensive than having a technician swap the power/video board, particularly if you did not have AppleCare. And you could replace it with a more robust part, so that you were not in the same circumstances again 6 months or a year later.) I guess with the relative decline in price of whole subsystems -- in some cases -- these days, the greater availability of those, and -- again, in some cases -- the personal safety if not always ease of swapping them out, something might be said for "increased repairability". On the other hand, I don't think the Classic Mac design rates a 0/10. Lots of things back then could kill you. These days, you can't even purchase a real chemistry set for your kids, or in some cases hardly glassware for yourself.

The bane of my childhood was hysterical, clueless adults warning about how I could die from opening anything with a CRT in it... yet here I am!

joosters 13y ago
Yes, that must mean it was all lies and misinformation. Thanks for setting us straight on that.
epo 13y ago
Fascinating. Please share your insights about drink driving, we'd love to know.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 13y ago
It's too bad nobody has CRT's anymore. We used to build these in high school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibW_x8lWWFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibW_x8lWWFM. Yes, it's entirely as awesome as it looks.
bri3d 13y ago
For all the sarcastic responses to this post, I can't find a single record of a death by CRT. I found lots of references to people accidentally touching the HV side of CRTs and receiving a painful shock but none of the shock causing any lasting issues. Death by CRT is definitely possible in theory and the lack of real-world examples could be an issue of shoddy reporting (i.e. cardiac arrest due to electric shock minus a CRT as the specific reason) but I'd think think that across the millions and millions of CRTs sold there'd be at least one concrete report of a death. Does anyone know of any?
- tibbon 13y ago
  Same with guitar tube amps. "Deadly voltage", but I can't find many/any instances of people actually getting killed from tube gear repair.
billforsternz 13y ago
Send out the Mythbusters bat-signal

pasbesoin 13y ago

You need(ed) to drain any lingering charge in the CRT. It was easier and safer to do this with a dedicated tool than e.g. with a screwdriver, but the latter worked for one-off jobs. Ground the probe or screwdriver, then slide it under the rubber cup shielding the... good-grief, I've forgotten which. Anode connection of the tube. The tube/circuit could/can carry considerable charge for a significant period of time. Simply unplugging the mains power lead was not sufficient protection for a person working inside the case. But, the case was "easily" open-able -- aside from complaints about the non-standard screw heads and difficulty separating the halves if you didn't have a tool to insert into the seam and pry them apart. And once you were inside, things were pretty accessible. There was even an entire cottage industry documenting and recommending/selling replacements particularly for analog components on the power board, some of which were perhaps a bit under-spec-ed in the original designs and prone to noticeable deterioration as well as outright, total failure.

joosters 13y ago
I'm not saying it was impossible to safely open these machines. After all, there were plenty of people safely working in TV repair shops. If you knew what you were doing and weren't sloppy, you would be perfectly safe. The problem is, not everyone would know what they were doing. At least with current tech, the worst that can happen is you ruin your computer and not your life.
- pasbesoin 13y ago
  Well, perhaps in a meta sense, the older designs "repaired" (us) by thinning the herd. ;-) One the one hand, I take your point. On the other, people wrote books documenting the whole thing and you could replace that defective capacitor yourself. (Significantly less expensive than having a technician swap the power/video board, particularly if you did not have AppleCare. And you could replace it with a more robust part, so that you were not in the same circumstances again 6 months or a year later.) I guess with the relative decline in price of whole subsystems -- in some cases -- these days, the greater availability of those, and -- again, in some cases -- the personal safety if not always ease of swapping them out, something might be said for "increased repairability". On the other hand, I don't think the Classic Mac design rates a 0/10. Lots of things back then could kill you. These days, you can't even purchase a real chemistry set for your kids, or in some cases hardly glassware for yourself.