On 18 Jan 2007 at 9:25, Jules Richardson wrote:
Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the
technology being available in
20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep
them running :-)
But then, we're going back to the original argument that today's
machines aren't built as well as the old ones. :)
I've got a few early 90's bits of consumer electronics sitting in a
corner of my shop, not to repair (not worth it) but waiting to be
scavenged for parts. There's the stereo receiver with a wonderful
great hunk of a power transformer and the portable TV with the blown
FBT wating to have its CRT scavenged someday. (BTW, if anyone has a
spare FBT for 14" Quimax PC monochrome display; I've got the rest of
the unit if you want it).
OTOH, someone dropped a no-name socket 462 mobo off (probably a
victim of Chinese capacitor disease) when I wasn't home. No memory,
no CPU, just the board. I scavenged the lithum coin cell off of it
for my wife's metronome. There's nothing else worth taking on the
board that I can see. There's no practical advantage to spending any
time to repair the board, even if I could.
Given the unrepairability of most modern consumer goods, I can't see
that collecting these things other than for keeping inert bits of
dead electronics for show will ever be practical. I'll hang on to
things that are reparable or have parts to scavenge; the rest hits
the waste (recycling) stream.
Cheers,
Chuck