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A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

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Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#32
post #21

While I'm all for right to repair, repairability is a tradeoff. Everybody seems to want a razor thin phone/laptop/whatever, which makes easy repairs impossible, and treats them as expendable anyway. If it's out of warranty it's obsolete. The amount of labor to diagnose and replace a chip on a tightly packed motherboard sometimes exceeds the price to replace an entire motherboard.

This is such a red herring. I've got a Galaxy S4 here that is bricked with a bootloop, due a software error on the emmc chip. I know this is the case, because someone has done the painstaking work of investigating the bug on the S3, and hacking up a reverse engineered fix. I'm guessing it would take a week to retrace their steps on my model. Meanwhile if these devices were well documented by the manufacturers, it wou…

What is a red herring? It's just not perceived by the public to be an issue.

If it was, it would be legislated just like car manufacturers are forced to carry parts for a number of years for every produced car.

Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#33
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a red herring. I've got a Galaxy S4 here that is bricked with a bootloop, due a software error on the emmc chip. I know this is the case, because someone has done the painstaking work of investigating the bug on the S3, and hacking up a reverse engineered fix. I'm guessing it would take a week to retrace their steps on my model. Meanwhile if these devices were well documented by the manufacturers, it wou…

What is a red herring? It's just not perceived by the public to be an issue. If it was, it would be legislated just like car manufacturers are forced to carry parts for a number of years for every produced car.

The narrative that "razor thin" devices preclude repair. If I had the manufacturer's documentation, the problem with my S4 could likely be fixed with just a USB cable. Its physical form has nothing to do with its general lack of repairability.

Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#34
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "ness" pronunciation is chiefly used by Brits (who also tend to pronounce SNES as "snezz").

Canadian here... ness all the way.

Canadian here. N E S all the way. You must be french.

Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#35
post #20

I‘m not much of a handyman myself but I found the video fascinating to watch. Very impressive to see the before and after pics in comparison.

Restoring old electronics is a booming segment on YouTube. If you enjoyed that, there's a virtually endless supply to peruse.

Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a red herring? It's just not perceived by the public to be an issue. If it was, it would be legislated just like car manufacturers are forced to carry parts for a number of years for every produced car.

The narrative that "razor thin" devices preclude repair. If I had the manufacturer's documentation, the problem with my S4 could likely be fixed with just a USB cable. Its physical form has nothing to do with its general lack of repairability.

They don't preclude repair but definitely make it harder to make modular, user serviceable devices.

Software repair is a different story of course, but it's another double-edged sword- you wouldn't like your phone's memory to be fully accessible with just a USB cable.

I can't imagine a mechanism that would only allow USB tampering only if the phone is malfunctioning.

Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#38

Nicely done. I restore and 'upgrade' NES consoles as a hobby. Most of these steps feature good restoration techniques. However, for anyone here looking to do the same, please skip the polyurethane step. While it may impede corrosion, that step makes the system much harder to repair/modify in the future.

I'm curious why the conformal coating was added to the bottom of the PCB, it didn't seem at all corroded after 30 years. On the other hand, I'm surprised they didn't replace all the electrolytic capacitors in the A/V area -- or even the whole unit. If some of those leaked already, IMO, the rest will leak soon too. Seems a bigger risk than a lack of conformal coating. shrug

Either way, excellent video and very well put together. I love seeing stuff like this.

Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#39
Sure, we all want the right to repair, but don't we realize that easily repairable devices could add as much as 1 to 2 mm of thickness to our phones? Sure, my Galaxy Note 2 had a replaceable battery and a shattered screen the local repair shop could fix for $50, but I paid for that with more than 0.5mm in additional device thickness than my current phone.

Re: A tale from the trenches fixing an NES

#40
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The narrative that "razor thin" devices preclude repair. If I had the manufacturer's documentation, the problem with my S4 could likely be fixed with just a USB cable. Its physical form has nothing to do with its general lack of repairability.

They don't preclude repair but definitely make it harder to make modular, user serviceable devices. Software repair is a different story of course, but it's another double-edged sword- you wouldn't like your phone's memory to be fully accessible with just a USB cable. I can't imagine a mechanism that would only allow USB tampering only if the phone is malfunctioning.

Your phone's memory effectively is fully accessible with just a USB cable. I am unaware of any android phone which actually verifies the signature on its bootloader - run `adb fastboot flash` and you can load arbitrary ROMs onto arbitrary chips. The contents of the ROMs is what's secret.
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