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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't need extra hardware. Most routers have some rudimentary TFTP boot mode that can be accessed by powering it up while holding a certain button. The device already has Wi-Fi, so the same mechanism can be used - if powered up in recovery mode, it'll scan for a specific SSID and then TFTP boot from a specific IP on there.

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The percentage of microwave users that could perform such a trick rounds down to zero.

So is the percentage of router users... and yet those debug modes are there because they cost nothing and can be useful in "oh shit" moments like these.

A router being down is potentially catastrophic for a household/business. Certainly more important (under most circumstances) than a microwave oven.

Eh, I think you're being uncharitable. My 80 year old mother could definitely figure out how to hold down a button while turning the thing off and on. We've been living with some version of that reality for decades.

Also to set up a wifi network with a particular SSID and a device on that that runs a TFTP server?

If it has a companion app for a phone (which this appears to be), you could easily have the phone do this for you. Not unlike setting up a wifi hotspot.

Just have support walk them through a menu on their phone for an "advanced" feature they just tap on, then hold the button on the microwave. Voila!

(Granted, I did tech support long enough to know this isn't easy; if someone can follow instructions, however, it should be doable.)

My mom is pretty adept with her iPad. If she was instructed to download an app, load it, and then stand in the kitchen after doing the button-push on the microwave, it would be completely within her ability. She knows what a wifi network is, she knows the password for hers. She is definitely slowing down a bit with age, but she rarely requires me to come over and help her with such things, at most she just asks for more confirmation these days before she says yes to a prompt.

That last part could also be because I harp on it every time the topic comes up, that under no circumstances should she be answering yes or ok to any random prompts that she isn't very familiar with already, and please call me if she's at all questioning the legitimacy of what she sees.

I wonder if that percentage of tech-savvy "elderly" is going up over time. I know I remember hearing that about anything computer related 20 years ago, but many of the people in the upper age ranges now lived with computers for a majority of their life.

My grandma is not tech savvy, but can follow directions pretty well. My spouse's grandma is tech savvy to a certain level and manages her own computer and photo library. I know either of them would likely be able to hold down a button and follow some set of directions to join a wifi and upload a file.

25 years ago, we were all bitching about having to program our parents' VCR for them. In 25 more years we'll be asking a teenager how to get TikTok beamed directly into our brains like they're doing.

I am 100% sure I will never be asking for that.

Now, figuring out how to get a containerization platform running in there might be a different matter...

Until the container gets rooted and people start asking why you call yourself Tyler half the time.

I knew a few elderly who managed to program their VCR. I also knew a lot of young people who couldn't.

>I knew a few elderly who managed to program their VCR

I tease my wife about not figuring out email until 2005. Of course I date back to the era whence we had to run down to the data center and take turns on the operator console to send each other text messages.

True, but is still easier than to replace the PCB or the entire unit. A technician might need 15 minutes to do the procedure.

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