Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

[Chuck Guzis]

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