29 Jun
2005
29 Jun
'05
4:16 p.m.
It appears to me that you consider there are 2 options
: Risk the
hardware by doing it yourself when you don't know what you are doing or
get a professional to do it.
There is, IMHO, a third option, and it's the one I always take. That is
to learn to do the job properly yourself by practicing on non-valuable
items. Even buyt things with the express intention of taking them apart,
knowing you might not get them back together again. I've certainly done that.
How does that change what I would do for *valuable* items? If I know someone
out there is able to repair it better than I, and the machine means something
to me, I think it would be *irresponsible* not to take advantage of that.
Or should I just futz up all my weird items just because I could learn
something by wrecking them? How pragmatic of you.
If it was some
PoC machine that I knew I could get another of, or was
busted and there was nothing to lose, then fine, I'd probably mess with
it. But I'm definitely aware of my limitations, and I don't see a learning
experience in ruining unusual hardware trying to learn to fix it (in
particular when a far better alternative to self-repair is available).
I disagree that it's 'far better' to get somebody else to do it. To me
the best thing is to learn something. That's one reason I play about with
classic computers, of course.