The fact that the public could get these at all. I have another one of these with the BIOS source code. I don't think e.g. HP would publish a schematic or BIOS source for one of their laptops today(I'd love it if you prove me wrong, of course) . Otoh, I have an old 1960's tube radio, and the full circuit is attached to the backplate, in the expectation that you might want to replace a resistor some day.
Tandy's machines came with similarly detailed information and schematics as a part of the purchase. Same for many of the rinky-dink 8-bit home computers like the Commodore 64. Today's machines, if their parts have tech specs at all, they're at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the leopard".
To be fair, to fully document a modern computer would require more paper than what a managed forest that covers an average rocky planet would be able to provide in a decade.
I was gonna say, "or tube", but then again, I think the tubes were standard models so you'd just bring your tubes in to the department store, test them in the tube tester⁰ and get your replacement.
author = {Ronald G. Minnich and James Hendricks and Dale Webster},
title = {The Linux {BIOS}},
coreboot:
Werner Zeh, David Hendricks, and Matt DeVillier.
Felix Held
Jay Talbott
Patrick Georgi
Stefan Reinauer
Ron Minnich
Martin Roth
Tim Crawford
Felix Singer
Marshall Dawson
Christian Walter
Julius Werner
Michał Żygowsk
Piotr Krol
Arthur Heymans
Angel Pons
Eric Peers
