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Ingenious concept!

by taskemann
8 replies
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"As you're getting ready to throw down a couple hundred bucks on the latest iPhone, Dave Hakkens might have just created the smartest smartphone on the market. With its Lego-like ability to swap out broke or outdated components, Phonebloks will literally be the only phone you'll ever need."

  • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
    That is great! Looks like my son's love of Lego is going to come in handy in the future.
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    NOT a new idea! I thought about that LONG ago! I'm sure many others did. There never seems to be follow through, etc... HECK, I had occasion to compare some stereo systems once. They looked similar, were from similar companies, etc... They had many similar features, but some features were only on certain models. I opened them up and WANT TO GUESS what I found!?!?!!?!?!?

    They had the ******SAME****** PC board! I don't mean similar, I mean IDENTICAL! The higher end models DID have more parts populated, and maybe more controls brought forward, but they were the SAME. If ONLY the cases were the same with pushouts, and the PC BOARD differences were brought out into modules, you could buy a low end system and upgrade as desired until you got to the highest level system.

    TODAY, there was a microcontroller board made with a nice concept BUT, even for its day, it was behind the times. NOW, it has like 50 big competitors with maybe 3-14 added every week. It would be nice if the manufacturers kept that stuff in their products, but they onsider it needless, so they will reduce it to its essence. That means less upgradability. OH WELL, it will be CHEAPER.

    HECK, the MPU(like that used in your computer) owes its existence to a kind of microcontroller, the great grandfather of that used in the PC.

    There ARE a number of practical problems here ALSO. When I came up with the idea, it was for things like radios, stereos, etc... Desktop computers already basically had the ability. But what about LAPTOPS? There HAVE been laptos that had replaceable processors, memory, batteries, disk drives, etc.... I mean in a way EASIER and more user friendly than perhaps ANYTHING today. Sadly, they DIED!

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Treeofl1
    Pretty sure you can do that with any phone. Some parts are just smaller and harder to replace
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    • Profile picture of the author taskemann
      Originally Posted by Treeofl1 View Post

      Pretty sure you can do that with any phone. Some parts are just smaller and harder to replace
      Yes, but the point here is that you can go and purchase updated and improved parts in your local tech store or order them online and easily replace them by yourself at home with minimum tech skills & knowledge.
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      • Profile picture of the author seasoned
        Originally Posted by taskemann View Post

        Yes, but the point here is that you can go and purchase updated and improved parts in your local tech store or order them online and easily replace them by yourself at home with minimum tech skills & knowledge.
        Well, you would be SHOCKED! Most computer parts are built for speed, low cost, and low power. YEP, this is true of the lowliest 1802 and the highest end i7! THIS NECESSARILY means they are sensitive to STATIC, yet most never even NOTICE the warnings! And I have known enough otherwise seemingly smart people that couldn't determine WHAT needed to be replaced.

        If your goal is to be fixable in that manner, FORGET IT! It has been DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

        TVS for DECADES, up until maybe 1980, were mostly USER SERVICABLE! Oh sure, there are resistors, capacitors, coils, potentiometers, etc.... that can go bad but it is surprisingly RARE! There was also the CRT and yolk that could go bad, but they lasted a while also. My father had an entertainment center that lasted over 30 years. In fact, it may have been going strong after that. But a good deal of the circuitry was tied to TUBES. They had tester/sales kiosks in front of perhaps every supermarket! You could take suspect tubes, or ALL if you wanted, to your supermarket, test them, and replace bad ones. EASY, SIMPLE, FAST, CHEAP!

        STILL, many probably had repair guys come to replace simple tubes. Many were just SCARED.

        MOST desktop computers, perhaps even now, have many parts that can be replaced. Most don't bother. Most don't even bother to update the BIOS. Then again, I read a week or two ago about a person upgrading a BIOS WITHOUT taking proper precautions. The process stopped mid stream, and her computer was "BRICKED". A computer needs the BIOS to do anything, so if the program crashes after modifying only part of the BIOS, you generally can't do anything. YEAH, it WOULD be nice if they socketed a chip for that, and provided it for various brands, so you could swap out a replacement, but they apparently DON'T. That is ANOTHER thing. It USED to be that most expensive ICs were SOCKETED! TODAY, many AREN'T! They USED to have many stores selling the parts. TODAY, they DON'T!

        HECK, one COMPUTER company had a dream that ALL TV repair people would be able to easily fix computers ON SITE! OH, NICE dream! You know what happened? They apparently NEVER achieved their dream! They basically died out in 1994. And what happened with the TV repair people anyway? As I said earlier, TVs were easier to fix earlier but because of low inflation, and people that were scared or unlucky, they still had good business. Eventually TVs became cheaper, less uniform, and harder to repair, and most people just replace older TVs.

        So YEAH, keep dreaming for a star trek like existence. It likely won't happen in our lifetime. Don't you love star trek how it seems everyone can do everyone elses job, and they even know "warp theory"? Heck, Scotty uses a computer that is from HUNDREDS of years in the past to illustrate a chemical formula? I mean with startreks computers, you just TALK to them! Current day? It could take me HOURS to find an appropriate program on a strange computer, and I would probably just ask THEM! I doubt even .01% of the worlds population has such a program ANYWAY even TODAY.

        Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by Treeofl1 View Post

      Pretty sure you can do that with any phone. Some parts are just smaller and harder to replace
      You ever try to replace an 8086 with an i7 processor? The SIZE is different! The behavior of support circuitry is different. Support circuitry needed is different. Pinouts are different.

      The fact is that, to a degree, there have maybe been HUNDREDS that promised this modularity. To a degree, there have been dozens that approached modularity to a decent degree. There may even have been a few I would be satisfied with.

      I have YET to see one that follows through. And the smaller and more independent they are, the less likely it is that it will be done.

      BTW you would be hard pressed to name a single phone that even has a BATTERY that could be swapped out. I have had SEVERAL popular phones, and I think the blackberry was the only one that had a replaceable battery that wasn't tied to the phone. BTW I got the blackberry because the TSA destroyed the battery in my previous phone, and it was HEAVILY tied to the design of the phone. They didn't make the PHONE anymore, so the battery couldn't be replaced.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
    Electronic waste is a massive problem nowadays. It would be great to see a change of paradigm. That kind of petition just might be the spark to set it into motion. However, it would be a downright revolutionary change. There would probably have a better chance creating it oneself than trying to make others do it and that would be a huge undertaking demanding heroic perseverance.
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by thunderbird View Post

      Electronic waste is a massive problem nowadays. It would be great to see a change of paradigm. That kind of petition just might be the spark to set it into motion. However, it would be a downright revolutionary change. There would probably have a better chance creating it oneself than trying to make others do it and that would be a huge undertaking demanding heroic perseverance.
      Well, in the US, we had the paper reduction act. What a LIE! I could almost ******INSTANTLY****** reduce the amount of waste in the US by a LOT by just creating a few laws. Simply simplify the tax code, and make it LOGICAL! Do you have ANY idea how much paper that would save? It could save THOUSANDS of *****TONS***** of paper or more. HECK, I was originally THROWING AWAY hundreds of pages of paper a year. I bought books having about 1000pages. Every year, I get programs having about 100pages of waste, I STILL have about 15 LARGE boxes of paper waste I have to take care of. I have about SIX LARGE lateral files filled with papers. WHY? TAXES mostly!

      TAX FORMS, BOOKS, ETC... MAN! BTW It would also have prevented the problem our economies have now.

      Steve
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