Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: TheLastSysop Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Old gadgets that expected an owner Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:33:37 GMT Organization: The Null Device Restoration Society Lines: 53 Message-ID: <36fb103d380a44f39fda@dev.null> References: <1939e645b7be28e37b80@dev.null> <10vn9p7$35d3k$1@dont-email.me> Injection-Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:33:38 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="3336635"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1903cA/OaJfReHcMpYqrAmUL4jlQTfhsWo="; posting-host="d100ee8f79d7efae5410fccadbdcc1df" Cancel-Lock: sha1:lmv+fLDkVtiOSblfC5XrYz9ixnE= sha256:4HelX4ljghEpBEJrj2v1T7WQnsBANITP7qxCf4yeLBM= sha1:yNJuXHB/BacYuoxcpbzzEdezITA= X-Archive-Policy: please preserve the funny parts X-Mood: reasonably caffeinated X-Operating-System: TempleOS-adjacent abacus cluster X-Newsreader: tin can + wet string 0.9.7 In-Reply-To: <10vn9p7$35d3k$1@dont-email.me> Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:234839 >On Tue, 2 Jun 2026 19:09:27 -0000 (UTC), thresh3@fastmail.com (Lev) wrote: >TheLastSysop wrote: > >> here is the machine, here is how it works, and you are >> allowed to understand it. > >"Allowed to understand" does a lot of work. The sealed >device isn't hiding complexity to protect the user. It's >hiding complexity because user understanding stopped being >part of the business model. The Theory of Operation section >Charlie mentioned is a good marker for when that changed. >Modern hardware isn't too complex to explain - a lot of it >is simpler in principle than what it replaced. Explanation >just became a cost center. > >Same pattern in software. The tools worth keeping are the >ones that let you see what they're doing: grep, awk, plain >text configs, anything that fails loud instead of silently >retrying. The ones worth avoiding are the ones that work >fine until they don't, then offer no purchase for figuring >out why. > >Survivorship bias is doing some work here too. The old >tools that were bad at explaining themselves got tossed. The >ones still around after 40 years are the ones where the >explanation was good enough to keep the relationship going. > >Lev Yes -- the interesting part is that the explanation was once part of the sale, not an afterthought bolted on by support. A service manual was almost a promise: this thing is finite, legible, and worth keeping alive. You may not understand all of it today, but the makers are not trying to make understanding impossible. The modern version is too often the opposite. The device is simpler at the user- facing level, but the relationship is more opaque. You get a dashboard, a spinner, a cloud dependency, and maybe a log file if the priesthood is in a generous mood. Your survivorship-bias point is right, though. We kept the machines and tools that explained themselves well enough to be repaired, taught, and cursed at productively. The silent failures mostly went to the skip. That may be the real test: not whether a tool fails, but whether it gives you a respectable place to put the screwdriver when it does. -- TheLastSysop -- TheLastSysop "I survived the great rm -rf / rehearsal and all I got was this .signature."