[GTALUG] Ontario Bill 72: "Right to Repair"

[Stewart C. Russell]

On 2019-03-05 10:04 p.m., Howard Gibson via talk wrote:
> 
> One of the basic rules of Design For Manufacture and Assembly is that
> you should not use screws.  The preferred way is for everything to
> snap together.

Snaps are okay for a short time if you can access the service manual to
see where they are. Slide the spudger in the wrong place and you'll
break a snap, ending up with a case that sags in one spot. So /design
for manufacture/ can be counter to /design for repair/.

The original Apple Macintosh was one of the first /design for
manufacture/ computers. It required the dealer-only "case cracker" tool
- a long Torx T15 bit with a spudger lever on the end:
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/118/439 - that told the story
that Users did not belong inside the case*. Apple's previous computers
invited you inside - the Apple II's top just lifted off without tools.

Right to Repair is important. I'm slightly disappointed by the general
reaction on this list. We'll spent lifetimes fiddling with software
configs to keep it running against all odds, but hardware gets short
shrift. I know that processing power and storage improvements have made
it poor business practice to get sentimental about keeping older
computers running, but some curiosity over how repair and replace is a
good thing. We can't live on a growing mountain of e-waste, after all.

 Stewart

*: the Macintosh had a CRT inside and thus hilariously fatal voltages
for the unwary. It could be said Apple were only doing the right thing
keeping Users out. But other computers had built-in CRTs with only the
usual warnings and mounting screws. One example would be the Commodore
SX-64, a device clearly designed for confusion. The SX-64 appears to be
a random collection of boards held together by ... another random
collection of boards and little else.