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

[sciguy at vex.net]

Also, learning how to navigate new interfaces when the ones on our old equipment posed no problem. Or knowing all the workarounds of our old equipment and being happy with what the old equipment did. If the old equipment did everything you wanted it to, there would never be a reason to buy new, regardless of "advancements". This would be a major motivation (to me at least) for repairing old equipment.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: talk <talk-bounces at gtalug.org> On Behalf Of Stewart C. Russell via talk
> Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2019 8:51 AM
> To: talk at gtalug.org
> Cc: Stewart C. Russell <scruss at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [GTALUG] Ontario Bill 72: "Right to Repair"
> 
> 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.
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