
Long Term Support - luu
http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/12/17/long-term-support/
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> I don’t care about thin or light at all. I’m happy to carry a few extra
> pounds; these are my tools, and if that’s the price of durable, maintainable
> and resilient tools means a bit of extra weight in the bag I’ll pay it and
> smile. I just want to be able to fix it; I want something I can strip all
> the way down to standard parts with a standard screwdriver and replace
> piecemeal when it needs piecemeal replacing. Does anyone make anything like
> this anymore, a tradesman’s machine? The MNTRE people are giving it a shot.
> Is anyone else, anywhere?

If durable, maintainable, and resilient are your number one priority, maybe
you want a desktop. It is trivial to open up the case and replace or upgrade
components. Desktops also tend to last longer than laptops. It is harder to
transport, but I am sure just like the various mechanics, you can come up with
a rolling toolbox for your desktop that you can load into the back of your
pickup truck. As a bonus, you can also get higher performance CPU's since you
can deal with the heat better in a desktop case. I am sure that such a risk
could easily last you 10 years, and it does seem like the perfect choice given
your priorities.

~~~
fao_
> If durable, maintainable, and resilient are your number one priority, maybe
> you want a desktop. It is trivial to open up the case and replace or upgrade
> components.

I'm both confused and utterly baffled about why you think taking a full-blown
desktop computer to conferences, hackathons, cafés, work, etc. is even an
option. It feels like a common response on hacker news, and hell, even in
developer circles in general at the moment, is the equivalent of:

    
    
        "I want X, Y, and Z, and we used to make things that 
         satisfy those requirements, and we don't anymore. Why 
         is that?"
    
        "You don't want Z, you want Q, which does X and Y" 
    

where Q is something that makes the whole point of X and Y impractical for the
person's use-case.

To belabour the point: I don't see how you get from "A slightly less-thin
laptop that has some room for upgrades" to "A desktop computer that requires a
separate monitor, a stable and available power supply, a table, and associated
peripherals"

Thinkpads used to be designed in a way that would allow upgrading and
replacing of common components. Hell, it used to be the case that IBM/Lenovo
had a line of thinkpads that were _specifically designed_ for this sort of
upgrading. Why aren't they still? There _is_ a market for this (one only has
to look at the prices and the demand of second-hand Thinkpads of that
variety), the problem is that not only did laptop manufacturers realise that
not allowing users to upgrade components, means that they can charge them
again for a more powerful laptop in a few years time, but laptop manufacturers
are trying to compete on Apple's "we have the thinnest machine in the world"
front, for whatever reason.

~~~
Spooky23
> Thinkpads used to be designed in a way that would allow upgrading and
> replacing of common components. Hell, it used to be the case that IBM/Lenovo
> had a line of thinkpads that were specifically designed for this sort of
> upgrading. Why aren't they still? There is a market for this

No, there isn't. The ASP of a computer is about $600. The ThinkPad T and X
series of old were usually 2-4x that, and were targeted at high end users.
It's like the market for used Mercedes-Benz sedans -- it's a niche of a niche.

They compete with Apple because their devices looked like shit compared to
Apple, and highend sales tanked. Apple goes for thin and light because it
drives sales and margin. Apple makes a 25-30% margin on laptops. Dell makes
like 3-5% on most hardware, and government procurement contracts often have
them selling devices at negative (up to -4%) margin in exchange for rebates
from Intel or AMD or services revenue. At volume, Dell/HP/etc makes more money
putting asset stickers on computers than the computer.

~~~
fao_
You might be right! I don't admit to knowing the exact market dynamics in play
here. That being said, it feels like your comment is missing the forest for
one particular (perhaps rotten) tree.

Firstly, addressing your argument: A lot of people shell over 1000$ and weeks
of time on Thinkpad reworks that reuse older chassis but have upgraded
components (See: The X210[0], the X62[1], the T430 modders[2], etc.[3][4]),
not only is money clearly _not an issue in this particular niché_ , the look
of the machine isn't either.

Secondly: Regardless of the exact dynamics in play, the parent post completely
spectacularly missed the point of the article in question.

[0]:
[https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/](https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/)

[1]:
[https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/](https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/)

[2]: [https://medium.com/@n4ru/the-definitive-t430-modding-
guide-3...](https://medium.com/@n4ru/the-definitive-t430-modding-
guide-3dff3f6a8e2e)

[3]:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/index](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/wiki/index)

[4]: [https://www.bobble.tech/free-stuff/used-thinkpad-buyers-
guid...](https://www.bobble.tech/free-stuff/used-thinkpad-buyers-guide)

~~~
Spooky23
I definitely think there are customers — I carried a rebuilt T5xx for a few
years!

The issue is the market changed about 8-10 years ago. I used to buy 20-30k
desktops a year. 80% were the shitty commodity HP/Dell (example would be the
HP Probook middle of the line). 20% were nicer devices like Thinkpads. The
change was that high end use cases vanished as Intel started failing, so we’d
buy more memory instead of a better device. The laptop use cases that remain
all went Mac.

Nobody cares about the quality or repairability of the average device. Service
is outsourced and dominated by labor cost, a Dell PC tech is billed out as low
as $25/visit and just replaces boxes. A competent tech who can rebuild
computers will cost like $90k (in an out of the way place) and only be able to
service 2-4 devices a day. You’re looking at 5-7x the cost for a benefit that
nobody cares about.

The market wants cheap commodity. There are probably 250k enthusiasts who
would give a hoot about PCs, but their number is shrinking and the market has
consolidated into a couple of big players, who won’t make enough money to
invest in the market.

------
ilikehurdles
I still use my 2012 Macbook Pro Retina, as well as a 2015 one I got from my
last job. The 2012 was the last laptop I bought with my own money, and it
survived a good amount of drops and abuse. The 2015 has a completely unusably
broken trackpad (funny, the only noticeable difference between these models
was this stupid 3D/Haptic press feature that broke in the later model).

The current one from my current job, much less than a year in, has several
misfiring keys: my 'm' triggers multiple presses and I've had to erase several
extras in this comment alone, the cmd key sometimes works sometimes doesn't,
and several of the key caps have completely worn off from use. The LCD screen
above the keyboard sometimes gets stuck in the wrong context.

I don't know if anyone makes a tradesman's machine anymore, but Apple
certainly does not.

~~~
parasubvert
The 16 inch MacBook Pro feels like a return to what made the product great.

~~~
tonyarkles
Yeah, I feel like I lucked out. Had a 2010 13” MBP that I finally retired this
year when I took on an iOS project and needed Catalina. There’s been a lot of
complaining about MBPs over the years since I bought the previous one, but I
am super super happy with this new one. (The 2010 did have an SSD and RAM
upgrade; still surprisingly usable for the age)

------
gwbas1c
Look more closely at the example of the drill, with the exception of the
batteries, can you go out and buy a new motor when it burns out? Can you go
out and buy a new trigger?

At a certain point, electronics becomes cheaper and more reliable as
components get so tightly integrated that they aren't replaceable.

Anyway, this makes me wonder if there's a niche for a "portable computer" that
is comprised of standard, easily-replaceable parts. I probably wouldn't buy
one, but I wonder who would?

~~~
bochoh
The idea of the modular CPU / GPU on this is appealing if only for the idea
that your GPU could be upgraded yearly instead of having to shell out for an
entire machine. [https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/283336-alienwares-
latest-...](https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/283336-alienwares-latest-
laptop-comes-with-upgradeable-cpu-gpu-options)

~~~
toast0
The _idea_ is nice, but basically zero of these laptop ideas have turned into
a worthwhile execution.

Intel sockets offer at most one upgrade cycle, and of late require a firmware
update for that, so really the upgrade potential is from a low end chip to a
high end chip in the same architecture, but the socketed systems often cost a
lot more than a soldered system.

The GPU modules are also subject to the continued viability of the form
factor. Recent trends for reduced GPU power consumption make this more likely
to hold up, but still kind of iffy.

Something with real potential for upgrades would be a standardized motherboard
size, including z-height, and cooler positioning; then you could swap in a new
board and reuse the chasis/display. Of course, you would need to standardize
the type and position of display connections and connectors for keyboard and
pointing device and battery and what not. I don't think the manufacturers
would gain much though --- if it was useful to them for this to be standard
across models and model years, we would see some of them with an internal
standard instead of every model being similar but not the same on the inside.

------
smacktoward
_> Does anyone make anything like this anymore, a tradesman’s machine?_

One of the perplexing things about modernity is the way that capitalism, a
system whose big strength is supposed to be the way it provides choices, in
practice keeps producing markets where the available choices are only skin
deep. There's a market-leading product, and there's a million minor variations
on that market-leading product, but if you want something _fundamentally
different_ from that market-leading product, you're out of luck.

If you want a smartphone, you're going to be buying a flat, featureless slab
of glass with a soldered-on battery. Want a replaceable battery? Want a
different form factor or a physical keyboard? Sorry, you're out of luck.

If you want a TV, you're going to be buying a "smart" TV with a bunch of
poorly written software that will be obsolete a year from now. Just want the
display without the software? Sorry, you're out of luck.

You can see this happening in non-tech markets too, like the car market, which
is increasingly converging on the "crossover" layout as the One True Passenger
Car. You can still buy other layouts, but the number of carmakers who offer
those other layouts are dwindling fast. (Ford has famously already given up on
them completely.)

So we end up with these weird markets where there _seems_ to be no end of
choices available, but that's only true if your desires line up exactly with
those of the average consumer. The farther they diverge from that golden mean,
the quicker you find you really have no choices at all.

~~~
MadWombat
> keeps producing markets where the available choices are only skin deep

Because it turns out that catering to minority demands only works for some
markets, but not others (i.e. all cell phones look and function the same, but
there are dozens of different flavors and textures of peanut butter). And
also, because it turns out that convincing the customer base that what you
offer is what they want is easier than making the things they actually want
(mostly because people rarely know what they want in the first place).

Also, all three examples you mentioned have fairly straight forward reasons.
There are no physical keyboards on phones because most people prefer more
screen space and a keyboard takes space. There are no "dumb" TVs because
people prefer their appliances to work out of the box and that is exactly what
the "smart" TVs provide, you don't have to plug them into any other device to
get them to show you content. And cars have been pretty standard for a while
now, there might be some demand for a car with a dildo shaped joystick instead
of a steering wheel, but maybe not enough to warrant actually making one.

~~~
juped
I can't believe you think glib "people prefer" explanations somehow answer or
explain away his critique. And "dildo shaped joystick"? Really? "Crossover" is
a form factor (smallish SUV), by the way.

------
jolmg
> Does any computer manufacturer out there anywhere care about longevity like
> that, today? The Cadillac answer to that used to be “Thinkpad”, but those
> days are long gone and as far as I can tell there’s nothing else in this
> space. I don’t care about thin or light at all. I’m happy to carry a few
> extra pounds; these are my tools, and if that’s the price of durable,
> maintainable and resilient tools means a bit of extra weight in the bag I’ll
> pay it and smile. I just want to be able to fix it; I want something I can
> strip all the way down to standard parts with a standard screwdriver and
> replace piecemeal when it needs piecemeal replacing. Does anyone make
> anything like this anymore, a tradesman’s machine?

Panasonic toughbooks. I have a CF-C2. Here's a couple of comments I did on it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122762)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122803)

I also found the bottom strap/handle is made from a thermoplastic. When I got
mine, it was too "open", which made the laptop jiggle a little while typing. I
just took it off, and with a bit of patience, a heat gun, and a soldering iron
(to seal a crack I did from improper use of the heat gun), I managed to adjust
the shape so that it was more comfortable. I grips my hand better too.

Here's a review Linus from LinusTechTips did on a newer model toughbook:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7rt6BZYscs&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7rt6BZYscs&t=2s)

------
tonyedgecombe
>I don’t care about thin or light at all. I’m happy to carry a few extra
pounds;

That's a small niche now, most people don't want to lug a heavy laptop around
with them.

~~~
NullPrefix
You're thinking about tablets.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
No.

------
MrGilbert
Well, one way would be to get a barebone laptop from an OEM like Clevo.

As you can fit these with your own RAM, CPU and drive, it is quite servicable
per definition. Of course, if the mainboard breaks, you need to rely on the
manufacturer. But the same applies to the engine of the DeWalt drill, I guess.

I mean... there are people out there that can fix the engine of the drill. I‘m
pretty sure there are also people out there that can fix a mainboard.

~~~
bluGill
There are people who can fix main boards. They fix cracks by soldering jumpers
across it (I'm not sure how they deal with multi-layer boards). They replace
capacitors almost without bothering to check if the old ones are still good.
They can replace the other parts too if replacements exist: they have the
diagnostics tools to figure out what is broke.

They charge skilled labor prices for this service. Be prepared to pay
thousands of dollars. It is almost always cheaper to replace the entire board
than repair, but sometimes you depend on that exact computer (for timing
reasons where a faster modern computer won't work). Or sometimes the board is
tied to a much larger machine that would be expensive to replace.

~~~
vbezhenar
My iPhone had broken WiFi module. One guy removed it and soldered new. He used
microscope and very tiny soldering iron. It looked like very skilled work for
me. I was charged $50 for work, WiFi module and new battery (he replaced
battery as well). I live in Kazakhstan, btw.

It's interesting how economies change between very different countries. We are
paying 20-40% premium for iPhones compared to US prices, but manual labor is
very cheap, even skilled one. For American people right to repair sometimes
sound like a fun thing to do. For Kazakhstani people right to repair might be
a difference between using a phone or not.

~~~
singron
That reminds me of Baumol's Cost Disease[1]. Some industries become more
efficient due to advances in technology (e.g. manufacturing and agriculture),
but others do not (e.g. healthcare, education). Those other industries become
more expensive in real terms since you have to pay people more to do the same
job.

E.g. in this case, the US economy is so productive, and manufacturing is so
efficient, that repair (which isn't made much more efficient by technology)
becomes more expensive.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease)

------
reilly3000
Apple, or at least the Apple ecosystem, may have the best consistency across
manufacturers. Maybe Dell falls into that category as well. The vast majority
of technology sellers simply don't stay around long enough to have a long term
plan, and I don't think many consider "Parts" to a line of business they give
full support to.

~~~
Nullabillity
Many do, they just don't advertise it very well. ASUS directed me to
Asusparts[0] a few years ago when I was looking for a replacement battery.
Apparently they still sell most of the parts for the original 2007 Eee PC
701![1]

Lenovo's parts website seems less comprehensive from what I can tell, but
their schematic view looks really useful.[2]

If anything, Apple, with their commitment to lockouts and supply chain
control, are the standouts in their outright hostility to repair.

[0]: [https://asusparts.eu/en/](https://asusparts.eu/en/)

[1]:
[https://asusparts.eu/en/partfinder/Asus/Netbook/Eee%20PC/701](https://asusparts.eu/en/partfinder/Asus/Netbook/Eee%20PC/701)

[2]: [https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/se/en/products/laptops-and-
netb...](https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/se/en/products/laptops-and-
netbooks/thinkpad-x-series-laptops/thinkpad-x220/4286/parts/display/schematic)

~~~
privateSFacct
Is this a joke re apple?

They make some of the highest value preserving phones out there - period.

Long after your supposed "standouts" in repairability heads to the landfill,
apple's phones will be repaired and re-used and passed along to another user.
Seriously - look at the prices for used apple products or if you go to sell an
old phone - its incredible.

The latest software is available to phones 6 or even 7 years old.

I'm seriously curious - can you list phone from Samsung / HTC or whoever you
consider to be a standout in not locking folks out from 7 years ago and the
software platform that is available for it? The security updates being
produced for it?

I'm seriously very curious - I keep being told apple is terrible but no one
will actually NAME a phone that lasts longer (I say this as my parents use
their apple products for 5-7 years easily with a battery replacement when I
come out to visit) - I could probably switch them to an HTC or other product
as long as they could actually get maintained software and repairs for the 5+
years they keep their devices. Apple - they can just walk into to get things
fixed.

~~~
Nullabillity
The thread so far was about laptops, so that's the context that in which I
responded.

I wish I had a good answer for phones.. Fairphone, maybe? That whole industry
is a depressing dumpster fire. Though, once again, Apple manages to be by far
the most hostile (bricking all phones with replaced displays, anyone?).

~~~
privateSFacct
The same is even more true for laptops.

Have you priced out old laptops? An old sony or asus laptop has basically zero
value. An old mac has value.

I don't use mac's but my wife does. At the office we go through laptops in
bulk (every 2 years basically). He used her laptop very successfully for
something like 6-7 years (and apple had software that supported it). The only
thing she needed to do was get a new battery for $130. That was walk in
service.

By contrast, ordering replacement batteries for laptops off amazon (asus /
dell etc) - the things are TOTAL GARBAGE. Whatever lock down apple is doing in
their supply chain is paying off in long term reliability.

Interesting to see the downvotes though - I'll have to browse HN for them
because it seems the comments that don't fit the going narrative get trashed.

And yet no one can name the phone (or laptop) that holds value better than
apple - despite claims that apple is the worst. Does that strike you as a bit
weird? ALL other brands should be better if apple is really the worst.

It's basically a set of lies being pumped out about apple's reliability,
durability, longevitiy - and as people go out and buy crap phones from HTC etc
that fill up landfills, use child labor, are manufactured with much less
regard for the environment they pat themselves on the back.

Apple supports out of warranty repairs, on a walk in/drop off basis in many
cases, on items MUCH MUCH longer than almost all other manufacturers.

~~~
Nullabillity
My personal laptop (mostly used for travel these days) is still a 5 year old
$800 ASUS ROG G551J. The battery did go bad, but I got a replacement in less
than 24 hours (which is far from normal over here), and the installation was
tool-free.

I upgraded both the RAM and storage over time, which was trivial. Hell, they
have an official guide on how to avoid voiding the warranty while doing it![0]

[0]: [https://rog.asus.com/articles/g-series-gaming-
laptops/g551-u...](https://rog.asus.com/articles/g-series-gaming-
laptops/g551-upgrade-guide/)

------
ketzo
Sort of a tragic commentary that the one link the author provides to a
possible solution in the space currently 404's.

~~~
8bitsrule
Here it is (a solution in _this_ space):
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190527172134/https://mntre.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190527172134/https://mntre.com/media/news_md/2019-05-20-reintroducing-
reform.html)

~~~
arm
And here’s the current link on their website (for whatever reason, they moved
it from (or renamed the directory from) 'news_md' to 'reform_md'):

[https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2019-05-20-reintroducing-r...](https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2019-05-20-reintroducing-
reform.html)

------
danpalmer
Long Term Support means a lot more for a drill where the requirements for
drilling don't really change decade to decade.

Supporting computing devices over longer periods than 5-10 years just doesn't
really provide much benefit because of the exponential growth in computing
power. What we do with that power may appear to be growing more slowly, but
software really does do a lot more than it used to.

If you want that level of long term support, you're likely doing it for
business, in datacenters, and things like mainframes are an option. For those
you can pay a bit extra and get that level of support, like the drill battery
adapter.

The comparison being made doesn't seem to hold in such a different market.
Your drill doesn't need to go twice as fast to be useful today as it did 2
years ago.

~~~
stingraycharles
On a high level, computing requirements don’t change that much; the biggest
problem is our entire ecosystem’s expectations is growing as fast as our
hardware gains in performance.

It’s the mentality of the software industry as a whole. Making both pretty and
lean versions of the same app is never an option; typically one just makes an
electron app and calls it a day. Games are exempt from this and seem to
typically target a large variety of hardware.

I don’t know who started this, though. Whether it was the consumers who
started buying new computer hardware much more frequently than they are buying
drill machines, or the software vendors gradually bloating their apps forcing
users to upgrade their hardware. But it seems to be state that we’re in.

~~~
mntmoss
A lot of the bloat is derived from overarching platform features. A 1980's
application had to live on its own and communicate mostly in printed English
documents. Many of those early microcomputer apps were therefore glorified
printer drivers with a bit of disk or tape I/O. Everything ASCII or with a
regional code page - very simple. Then we added multitasking, networking, UTF
localization, variable and multi-display support, multimedia, accessibility
and so on. These features add value but as you say, raise expectations - and
so create subtle additional costs. We built frameworks and standard APIs to
deal with each thing as it came along. The platforms got bigger, much much
bigger. And the hardware profiles have shifted as well. 64-bit support adds a
lot of bloat for an application that doesn't need a huge address space.

Games are often immune to these things since the final runtime is mostly
"viewing" and not "editing", so their requirements are more focused, but they
also get hindered by platform abstractions. Only console games can even
consider taking direct control over I/O; everyone else has to go through some
kind of API, even if it's the operating system's lowest level API. There's all
kinds of buffering and sandboxing in consumer operating systems that is OK for
media playback, but not for interactivity. Games historically act as
bellwether "killer apps" \- soaking up resources to deliver basically the same
kinds of experiences at ever-higher fidelity, which justifies purchasing
higher end gear. Then the apps follow, making use of the new install base.
Things that were products gradually turn into standardized features.

There is some kind of endpoint, or perhaps reset point, to all this - when the
experience is already at peak fidelity, other forms of differentiation start
to set in. New apps regularly appear as the "small minimalist alternative" to
a old long-in-the-tooth standard. The new kid gets bigger to cover more users.
Then it becomes the old standard, and the cycle repeats. With some products
this is a very long cycle - Word and Photoshop are still viable. Others come
and go. But it's basically true outside of software too. Nails and screws used
to be extremely valuable and difficult to manufacture, and now they are simple
components - their role changed from being the product to being the feature.

------
aidenn0
FWIW while you can't get the Nickel-based batteries anymore, you _can_ get
Lithium based battery packs that fit the older tools (14.4V or 18V). You'll
need a new charger, but can keep the tool.

------
anderspitman
The incentives simply aren't aligned. The root of the problem is that our
economy depends on constant consumption. I'm not sure a company built around
computers that last could ever compete.

~~~
smolder
For industrial uses, where buyers care about total cost of ownership, there's
room for that. Now that silicon precision improvements have such small
performance returns, there's also much more room for "heirloom" tech for
consumers.

~~~
bluGill
Industrial users have problems with electronics: the chip from a 60nm process
still works fine, but the fab that makes them is closing and so they are
forced to spend money on a new chip built on a 12nm process. (or whatever the
latest fad is). The consumer mentality of replace with better is too big for
the industrial users to count.

------
noobermin
If John Deere is any indication, corporations are taking after IT's business
model as of late. We're moving backwards.

------
phonon
They are called workstation laptops...designed to be sturdy, upgradeable, lots
of ports...you can get them from Dell, HP, Thinkpad P series...

