Step by Step: Thinking through and beyond the repair manual | Hacker News Reader

Step by Step: Thinking through and beyond the repair manual

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57 pointsdrdee13 comments

Service manuals were works of art. Tear a page out of one from the 90s, and you can frame it and put it on your office wall as art.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294741882441

Not going to lie, I never would have thought someone could sell those for $10/each.

I used to do screen printing and one of my "themes" was to start with vintage technical diagrams and remix them with more organic elements - example human hands & the exploded diagram of the original gameboy. They were popular with a specific segment (i.e. nerds like me)

Do you still have some of that art somewhere?

this is slightly orthogonal but i find manuals written by the original equipment manufacturer are better than 3rd parties (ford vs haynes for instance)

Just to point out the beauty of how a clearly defined black-and-white mathematical term (just use the dot product!) becomes malleable once it enters language as a metaphor. There's great humor in being "slightly orthogonal". (Hopefully this doesn't come off the wrong way - just my mostly useless degree in linguistics acting up again.)

At which point is something slightly orthogonal - perhaps if it's between 1 degree and 45 degrees off topic, while if it is between 45 degrees and 90 degrees it is considered "fully orthogonal."

I found it varied wildly - the official manuals were incredibly detailed and covered everything - the Chilton guides would tell you how to avoid some weird $500 tool by using a crowbar and a dead chicken.

I wished all devices came with at least a schematics (or downloadable pdf) even if it weren't designed to be repairable. I remember getting my first computer, C64 in the 80's, and it came with schematics in the back of user manual. Even though I didn't understand any of it as a kid, I thought it was very interesting and piqued my curiosity toward learning computers.

Imagine if all our gadgets had a repair manual. Even if it was just schematics and assembly guide. Wow.

most of them are not repairable. They are manufactured using one-way techniques like fusing plastics vs. screws or clips, or the discrete parts are amalgamated into a single component, or you need special tools (or software) to do anything.

The manufacturers’ service teams want you to think that, but the truth is there will always be aspiring individuals who can figure out the fixes, and through the power of the internet share with the world.

Is an Xbox meant to be fixed? I learned to hot air rework a tiny QFN40 chip and got it working.

I plug a usb-can cable into my vehicle, and unlock all kinds of functionality that was held back (ex. rolling windows down from key fob).

I like to hope that out there are all kinds of engineers making small opportunities for doors to be opened, perhaps for themselves or the collective. So perhaps you too, can contribute with that “secret” menu or properly labeling the PCB pogo pins.

In a way, an undergraduate education provides the "user manual" for a field, and graduate the "shop manual".

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