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I mean, this makes no sense, but it's a window into a particular mindset.
FWIW, computer builds are about as complicated as they've been for a decade, there's a whole new market for at-home object creation ranging from 3D printers to affordable laser cutters (sometimes both in the same machine), retro computers haven't gone anywhere and are way more popular than ever as a hobby. If the real stuff is too hard to find or expensive there are now ways to build replacements ranging from single board FPGA units to kits where you can buy a PCB and all the components to solder at home.
There are now self-installable solar panel kits, fully open source home automation systems, and a whole subculture of very manageable self-hosting built around recycled old hardware. As a penis wielder of a certain age I feel like my socials are made up of nothing but aggressive hobbies to sink money on while pretending I am more crafty than I am so me and my middle aged friends can brag past each other about our computing habits or gardening habits or building habits or health habits.
BUT this is a thing. This is a thing people feel. They will go check a Linux distro because it feels weird and hands-on and crafty and adventurous, even though it's..., you know, installing an OS on a computer that mostly works fine.
If it's any consolation, this has been part of the appeal for three decades, give or take a few years. The "nothing else we can tinker with" angle is relatively novel, though.
Open source hardware is the bigger issue
We have more open source hardware today than has ever existed. Prior to RISC-V boards you can buy right now every single CPU available was closed source. Further, RISC-V is cheap which means it is a good foundation for future growth and scaling.
RISC is not fully developed yet, people are working on it, but we don't have mainstream purchasable stuff yet
As I said, "good foundation for future growth, but even then you can buy boards and even a couple of laptops right now with RISC-V CPUs:
Let's hope it takes off
Is it?
I mean, you can "tinker" just fine on commercial, proprietary hardware. That's the point of programmable computers in the first place.
Microcode that runs the chip: what does it do? Is it back doored? Closed source chip architecture means we can't develop for it or know the operation
So just to be clear, OP is here saying owning a Raspberry Pi goes beyond tinkering and is for engineer nerds and you're jumping in to propose that you want to develop your own microcode or you riot?
You may be in the wrong thread, friend. If you want to chat about how afraid you are of what AMD and Intel are putting in your morning cereal you may want to start your own conversation about it instead.
Yeah you might be right. I dont like microcode locked down.
Already burned by 2017 null password vulnerable on IME.
MS and government will use proprietary crap to become more invasive.
Try modifying a tesla and get remotely locked out when it phones home (actual scenario)
Thats the future of all electronics corps want!
Yeah, no, but that's my point. Cars, and particularly certain cars, have become less accessible and more locked down.
But a bunch of other stuff has popped up that wasn't there before, too. Try home automation, self-hosting, 3D printing or energy self-generation back when you remember servicing your own car or modifying the exhaust on your motorcycle (teenagers here didn't have cars in the first place, actually).
That's why I'm saying you're mixing up two things. It's one thing that corpos are closing down mainstream consumer products, it's a very different thing to claim there is no tinkering left outside of... installing Linux in your old laptop and having to troubleshoot it constantly or whatever that scenario is.
It's just not true. There's plenty of tinkering left, new and old, in a bunch of spaces. Which is not connected to whether or not you get to upgrade the RAM in your Mac Mini. Different things.
Today's equivalent is building your own ebike, and it's awesome and way easier than rebuilding an engine.
There is a ton you can do now!! But its still quite a bit harder vs in the old days taking a vcr apart to repair and regrease it or replacing a cap in an amplifier. Im just saying the bar is a lot higher now to get into interesting stuff like solar, a high cost (to actually get useable power and not run 1 bulb) plus if youre putting it on your house or garage now you need to know carpentry to attach them safely, electrical standards for how to wire to your panel, voltage regulators etc. Is very hard for the average Joe or kid to do.
I don't know, man, I think there's a lot of subjective experience in that perception. VCRs are actually kinda finicky, and you would not mess with CRT TVs at home if you respected your life. Computer stuff used to be prohibitively expensive, too. And cars weren't any cheaper (I mean, where I am, your mileage may very if you're in a place that uses miles). Plus the number of people I know with a different number of fingers than they used to have because of messing with car repairs is more than one, which is several more than I'd hope.
Meanwhile the average Joe can get a crapped out C64 on the Internet for peanuts if they just want to feel useful by doing some light soldering. Or recycle a laptop into a home server for literally zero money. You can get a 3D printer for 150 bucks and spend the rest of the decade getting good at CAD or 3D sculpting for fifteen bucks per kilo of plastic.
I'm not even saying the more recent stuff is better or more accessible. It's just that middle age crises are what they are and it's easier to remember older things fondly. I was a kid, we didn't have a ton of money and I tinkered on my computer despite the fact that messing it up would have meant not having one anymore indefinitely. Plus I didn't have youtube tutorials. The first time my BIOS battery died I spent months manually entering my BIOS settings on every boot because I didn't know what had happened and had no info to find out.
The stuff I did with my parents around the house hasn't changed, it was all saws and nails and hammers and hoes. That was the same thirty years ago and three hundred years ago, too.
I'd say you're mixing up two things. It's objectively true that consumer electronics are cheaper, more disposable and less repair-minded than a few decades ago when it was all fire hazards, big fat caps and wires everywhere. It is absolutely not true that tinkering as a hobby has gotten less accessible, popular or readily available. It just shifted around a little. The tools changed, the types of things you mess around with changed, some became available that weren't (no home servers for you in the 80s!) and some became harder.
I agree with you! Its also a mind shift too though. Everything (like windows) is made for the dumbest possible person to use, and to restrict you from doing anything that may break the system, thereby not allowing learning.
unless you specifically seek out tings like r pi and solar panel building etc. Which is not tinkering, that's full on nerd engineer stuff.
Linux is risky but you definitely learn from poking around it.
The Raspberry Pi is explicitly build as a widely available tinkerer tool. Its stated goal is to be cheap and widely available. Do you know what I would have given to be able to buy a disposable computer I could slap into things in the 90s for the equivalent of 60-100 bucks? That's insane availability. We could argue about how successful they are at that goal, but it doesn't matter because there are now even cheaper knockoff boards out there. It's bonkers.
And guess what, building a IBM PC compatible at home in 1989 was nerd engineer stuff. It cost an order of magnitude more than the Pi, for a start, but it was also poorly documented, hard to get and nobody else was doing it. The only reason I got one of those at around that time is I had a relative who was an actual engineer and knew what to get.
You only remember it being accessible tinkering for the masses because you got good at it.
Incidentally, I'd argue that Linux used to be tinkering, now it's... you know, a OS.
Don't get me wrong, it's still janky, but unless you deliberately throw yourself on the deep end the most "tinkering" you have to do is copy paste a line into the command line every now and then. And I would dispute that Windows is that locked down, either. Maybe Microsoft would like to lock it down further, but you can do whatever with it. For one thing you can run Linux inside it, if we're talking about tinkering.