vintage computers and lead poisoning?

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat Jun 5 21:59:11 2004

> There will always be devices to listen to your old recordings, you can still
> find record players and vcrs all over the place along with tape decks.

Only because those devices were repairable and because there are people
around who can repair them!. I would be very suprised if DVD players last
in the same way (for one thing they're a darn sight worse made than, say,
tape recorders, and for another they use a lot more custom parts, and for
yet another there are no service manuals available).

>
> All the new computers are made with custom parts many of which are
> proprietary and very hard to replace because of surface mounting. The reason

Surface mounting (apart from BGAs!) is only hard to replace if you're a
salesdroid!.

> electronics are so cheap today is because of the massive integration of
> components. The whole throw away commodity industry has also caused the
> massive recycling movement. Instead of landfilling all the old items they
> get recycled now and reused. Very few people can troubleshoot problems to

It is clearly better to reuse than recylce! And a lot of stuff, at least
over here, does _not_ get recycled.

> component levels (and most don't even want to if they could) and with the

Well, some of us actually enjoy fixing things...

> prices for new items being so low most of the repair shops in the industry
> have closed. How many people go to tech school to be an electronics

That is a separate rant. Yes things are too cheap (If they were made
correctly, and priced sensibly, then they would be worth repairing, and
they would be able to be repaired...)

> repairman? I can look in my basement and find 100's of devices that still
> work just fine but are obsolete to anyone except a collector, so even if we

Well, to me something is not obsolete if it still does the job....


> repaired everything it would still end up in the trash sooner or later.
>
> I would say quite a few of the people here grew up at the same time as the
> computer industry and know how to fix and troubleshoot computers, but the
> next generations will only know specialized areas of it.

If at all. It worries me -- a lot -- that almost nobody these days has
any sort of clue at all about computer hardware. I really wonder who will
be designing better computers in the future (or will we be stuck with
incremental modifications on the PC for ever :-()

-tony
Received on Sat Jun 05 2004 - 21:59:11 BST