Cory Doctorow is an activist I admire. One of the things he has his sights set on is ‘Right to repair’.
Me iPhone 8 was still fine but the battery went dead within a day. Especially on vacation that sucks. We take long walks and I have several apps open then: AllTrails, GPX Tracker and Relive or Polarsteps. Sometimes Google maps or a local hiking app, too. Each of them don’t use a whole lot of battery power, but enough to drain a faltering battery quickly.
I looked up the cost of a new battery. It’s 55 euros at Apple, 40 euros at someone around the corner, and 20 euros for the battery itself. That was not too bad.
But couldn’t I do it myself? The company ifixit.com accurately documents what you need to do and tells you what parts you need.
Now, the iPhone’s battery appears to have been secured in the device with glue. I immediately understand what Cory Doctorow means. That is an engineering sin. There is no way that is a qualitative reason for that. Apple just wants to make it difficult for you to repair the device yourself.
I ordered the set from iFixit, which, including the tools I didn’t already have, cost me 61 euros, including shipping. That sounds a lot, but I can also use those tools to repair a MacBook Pro 2021, which Apple says should cost 700 euros to repair a screen cable.
At some point, I realised that I have owned more computers than I could easily remember. Not because I collect them, but because they have quietly accompanied different phases of my life: learning, working, travelling, writing.
I felt like making a nerdy list. The computers I have owned. A history.
BTW also worked with DEC 10, VAX, ICL mainframe – VME, IBM mainframe – System 390 and beyond, Solaris, Aix.
Running the failed MSX operating system standard. You could already do a lot more with it.
The PC era
Entering the world of the wonderful 5¼-inch floopy disk, after the horror of using cassettes with the home computers.
Tulip PC compatible
Yes Tulip was a Dutch brand making computers. We did computers in the Netherlands. Philips has made computers, but missed a boat. Tulip was a nice brand, and worth a rabbit-hole but not now, just one mention: it bought the Commodore computer brand in 1997.
IBM PS2
Unimaginative bulky thing. Dialed into the Internet with it for the first time. Via Compuserve. Forums were the big thing (in nerd world, that is). Email. DOOM.
Portables (sort of)
IBM Thinkpad 500
My first portable, in quotes. The thing weighed a ton. Literally a brick.
IBM Thinkpad T20, T30, T41
All very good and enormously robust laptops. Great trackpoint thing to move the screen pointer. Missing that today still.
T20
Lenovo T410
After IBM sold the PC division to Lenovo, switched to that brand.
Lenovo T410
Apple years
Apple MacBook 2009
This was my first MacBook. Only then did I notice that the Mac user experience was so incredibly better than that of Windows. It also boots within 10 seconds, whereas my Windows machines always take over a minute or even (much) longer.
Apple Macbook Pro 2013
By far the best of them all. Still performs top notch. Indestructible.
MacBook Pro 2013 15″
Lenovo Ideapad 510
Becoming a freelancer, I needed a Windows machine.
This is a plastic device. Poor touchpad. But then again, it is by far the cheapest on the list.
HP EliteBook 1040 G3
Pretty robust and comfortable. But not at the Lenovo level with comparable models.
.
MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)
With touch bar. Could have left that out from me. Steve Jobs said correctly that people don’t know what they want, but the touch bar is definitely not what I want.
MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)
Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro
Nice machine. If it had the track point I had on the IBM T40 and follow-on models, I would be happier. The touchpad is ok, but not at the Mac level.
Update 2025: still working on a Lenovo Ideapad, and the MacBook. The gap between macOS and Windows is narrowing. I have some old laptops running Linux, which is doable but only because I am a techie. I think my next machine will be a Framework. We should be able to repair our stuff.
