[RadioAstronomer]

Whereas we miserable slobs can fix our own computers...

So can I.

In fact my very first computer was an S-100 computer that had a hand wire-wrapped backplane with each chip individually soldered into their respective daughter boards that I had to custom interface to a surplus teletype. When you say you fix your own computer, does that mean you only pull and plug boards? Fix to me is using a logic probe to find the bad IC and replace it. Anything else is just pop and swap IMHO.

[winodog]

But, but I can wipe a hard drive clean with software and reinstall everything just like it was before.

[Myrddin]

In fact my very first computer was an S-100 computer that had a hand wire-wrapped backplane with each chip individually soldered into their respective daughter boards that I had to custom interface to a surplus teletype. When you say you fix your own computer, does that mean you only pull and plug boards? Fix to me is using a logic probe to find the bad IC and replace it. Anything else is just pop and swap IMHO.

I was late to the party. My first computer was a Heathkit H-8. I built it from parts. It still works today. I did wire-wrap my first bit-mapped graphics board and wrote all the driver software for HDOS to make it run.