
No User Serviceable Parts Inside - colinprince
http://jacquesmattheij.com/No+User+Serviceable+Parts+Inside
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wccrawford
Ah, nostalgia.

However, he's also missing the part where the devices have a lot more
functionality as well. It isn't just that things are smaller and hard to trace
(even if they aren't deliberately obfuscated) but that they do a lot more,
too.

And people do still replace single components on a board, if they know how to
use a soldering iron and can see what piece is broken. Sometimes it's
impossible, but many times there are visual hints as to which piece died.

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duck
Plus there is always all the fun you can have with something like the arduino
kits that in some small way let you relive those days plus do _so_ much more.

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jgmmo
This. If you want to tinker -- these things are a gold mine.

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summitpush
I often wonder if there would be a market for appliances designed to be easily
repaired and upgraded. Obviously it would be a niche market, but based on the
popularity of the "Maker" movement recently, I think it has some potential.
The real problem is keeping up with the pace of innovation in the more custom
consumer electronics.

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jerf
I think you could get there with appliances that existed in the 60s or 70s,
but in many cases you simply aren't going to duplicate functionality of a
modern device any other way. An MP3 player needs an IC to decode the MP3, if
nothing else.

Although this makes me wonder if an analog MP3 decoder made out of
maintainable parts is possible. It would be awfully big, though.

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bonzoesc
Big, expensive, and unreliable. The most unreliable parts of most electronics
I've owned are user-manipulated wires, connectors, and ports. Taking the whole
unit back to the store for an exchange when there's a tiny defect (as I did
with my iPad a couple months ago) is actually more valuable to me than the
prospect of being able to do maintenance and component replacements on
something the size of the box an iPad comes in and twice as expensive.

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dionysiac
And things are continuing to change, too. More and more FPGAs and CPLDs are
showing up in end user electronics - our hardware is becoming software.

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chuchurocka
you can still find quite a bit discrete electronics in audio recording gear,
and some PA gear.

