Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come

#21

Post by Joakal » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 6:25 AM UTC

nickpinkston wrote: post #19

Joakal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fail rates may have reduced some interest, but I believe there's other bigger reasons: + Students are increasingly brought up to do memorisation over creativity. + It's hard to hack integrated microchips. Especially with proprietary software. Want to repair your own car? Need to take it to a Brand(tm) Certified car repair service to even get the proprietary diagnostic. Even then, they may refuse to give the logs…

It's largely a myth that you need proprietary scans. OBDII/III are standards that give instructive error codes - it's actually pretty easy with them and a good multimeter. The manuals are step by step - I'd say parts monopolies in German cars, etc. hurt worse.

Was talking about stuff like this: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/05/right-repair-law-pro

Re: Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come

#22

Post by rimantas » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 8:04 AM UTC

Joakal wrote: post #17

sliverstorm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more thing. The reason early computers and radios shipped with manuals and lists of replacement parts is because the technology was young, and things broke. As the technology has matured, it has integrated into our lives and failure rates have gone down. As a consequence, fewer and fewer people are interested in the guts, and people expect it to "just work". They have no interest or use for a repair manual with t…

The fail rates may have reduced some interest, but I believe there's other bigger reasons: + Students are increasingly brought up to do memorisation over creativity. + It's hard to hack integrated microchips. Especially with proprietary software. Want to repair your own car? Need to take it to a Brand(tm) Certified car repair service to even get the proprietary diagnostic. Even then, they may refuse to give the logs…

> Students are increasingly brought up to do > memorisation over creativity.

Is is so, or is this just a popular thought mindlessly repeated over and over? The thing is, for creativity you need a foundation of knowledge and there is no way to avoid memorization. Also, you may need to memorize what was already done: if you keep recreating everything yourself from scratch you may not have time to create anything new.

Re: Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come

#23

Post by anchorsteam » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 10:31 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #11

0x12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, a global economic depression would result in people keeping their possessions longer simply because they don't have the money to buy new. That would seriously suck then because the stuff that we've got today for the most part was built with a very definite life-cycle in mind. So when you are dumped in that global recession you need the quality stuff that wasn't produced when the recession wasn't on yet…

That's what repairs and maintenance is about. Religiously upkeeping something you can't possibly afford to replace is how it was done for ages.

I feel that personal goods like clothing, shoes, hand tools, etc... were made with more durability in mind until the mid 60's or so.

Re: Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come

#24

Post by 0x12 » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 11:05 AM UTC

anchorsteam wrote: post #23

sliverstorm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what repairs and maintenance is about. Religiously upkeeping something you can't possibly afford to replace is how it was done for ages.

I feel that personal goods like clothing, shoes, hand tools, etc... were made with more durability in mind until the mid 60's or so.

Absolutely, on top of that the stuff that is made today is not even meant to be repaired at all. It's all about the cost to the manufacturer and not falling apart until the day after the warranty expires.

Re: Why the Best Days of Open Hardware are Yet to Come

#25

Post by 0x12 » Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 11:07 AM UTC

My money is on massive FPGAs, think a whole wafer of silicon with just a bunch of general purpose IO and power.

Once stuff like that becomes available at a reasonable price (a big FPGA will cost you a lot of money at the moment) open hardware will be as simple as downloading a bitstream on to your 'general purpose' rig.