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Comment by tuetuopay | Hacker News Reader

I still don't get why they, as a tech channel with a tech audience, chose the default bit set to include Robertson instead of Torx. It'll be no surprise this driver will be used mainly in an electronics context, where torx is commonplace and robertson hardly seen, even more so outside of north America.

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It is my understanding that Robertson drive is very common in Canada, where Linus is located.

I live in Canada and that's news to me

I feel like most of the stuff I'd be using a screwdriver on came from the US, or Japan, or somewhere else. Especially electronics

I don't know if I buy that, LTT has never targeted a Canadian audience. If anything they try to make you forget they're Canadian. They only ever say US prices for things, which makes sense since that audience is way bigger. So I don't know why they'd target a screwdriver to Canadians.

It's mainly used in construction/industrial stuff here. The bookshelves in my office are screwed to the wall using Robertson for example.

I guess maybe they wanted a more general screwdriver? They don't seem to have the smallest bits either like you might want for general electronic repair or weird bits like the tri-wing or gamebit.

They regularly reference them being Canadian, and sometimes do state Canadian prices.

It's a Canadian thing.

While true, I've never seen it on a piece of tech.

If this is meant to be a general around-the-house screwdriver set, then the price point is way off. If this is meant to be more of a tech-focused set, missing Torx seems really dumb.

For most tech related tasks they could get rid of the flat-head bits and replace those with the Torxs. If they really wanted to keep the Robertson bits.

I don't agree because I've seen plenty of consumer-grade tech that uses flat-head screws. It's becoming less common but as one example I have a couple of external USB-nVME enclosures that came with flat-head screws to open the external casing. Inside it's Philips.

Ideally if I spent 1 billion dollars on a screwdriver, I'd want it to be useful for general use as well

I have heard that many of those screws that appear to have both a long slot and Philips style plus shape, are actually designed to also accept Robertson, and that in so doing using a Philips driver on those screws has a much greater chance of damaging the screwhead. These are often seen on things like outlets and light switches.

(Note, many but not all are designed to accept a Philips driver, with a visible cross that slightly extends past the 45 degree angled robertson opening, plus having some visible slopes to the edges rather than near 90 degree edges that a screw deigned for only slotted or Robertson would be expected to have. But there are some that are strictly flat and Robertson only).

For those particular screws the best bit is allegedly the ECX bit, which is basically a Robertson Flathead combo bit, and the second best bit to use is the appropriate sized Robertson bit, with Flathead next, and Philips being best avoided.

This makes including a Robertson driver actually not too unreasonable. I in the US have plenty of switches and outlets could be driven with it.

Robertson is really common for network closet / telco demarcation points in Canada

I think they would be kicked out of Canada if they didn't. :-P

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