Reusing Dead Tech

Another thing I am obsessed with (there are lots of these things, I hope you are prepared) is the concept of obsolete technology. It's such an interesting idea, because it is purely a cultural construction. Technology never becomes useless on its own; either we decide the use is no longer important, or something else comes along that we decide is more useful. (Of course we rarely think about the cost of adopting new technology, but that could be an entirely different post).

Whenever I think about this topic, I am reminded of my father, and his desire to write a novel. We had recently acquired a shiny new Macintosh, (this was probably 1991, or thereabouts) with all its amazing pointing and clicking and beige-ness. My dad told me how he wanted to write a book, and, of course, I showed him the new word processor on the Mac. I was astounded when he told me he wanted to dust off our old Apple IIe and use it, instead. How could someone possibly prefer the clacking, the cursor, and the monochrome to 4-bit color and a mouse?

Until that point I suppose I had never thought about the usefulness of obsolete technology. That Apple IIe had not ceased to flawlessly perform the functions it was designed for. We had simply decided to make different tools. Whether or not those tools were actually better...  is debatable.  But maybe I'll bring that up in another post.

To bring this back to relevance:
I love to go to second hand stores and look at the piles of technology we have decided has become obsolete. In almost every case the technology itself is simply astounding. At the time it was created, each piece was the absolute pinnacle of our advancement as a species. Yet only a few years had to pass before there was something better, faster, cheaper, or more appealing.

An example I have been studying recently are optical mice. There was a wave of posts in DIY blogs over the last year, and I was astounded after reading them. Every optical mouse contains a chip that is effectively a super-fast, low-resolution camera. It determines which direction it is moving by taking thousands of snapshots per second of the surface below it. It then sends those images to a DSP (digital signal processor), which compares each frame to determine the direction and magnitude vectors.

It boggles the mind to think that the technology that performs this function, so advanced that it can be used to accurately track a drone's flight, (which in the 1960s probably took a room of electronics to perform), has been miniaturized and integrated and streamlined and is so common place and unremarkable that I can buy one for $2 at Goodwill.

It is also a great excuse to buy a bunch of them and take them apart.

The Journey is not the Goal. The Goal is the Goal.

(I originally planned to put the text of this post under Introductions, but it seemed to take on a life of its own, so I gave it a separate page).

I am obsessed with the idea of simplifying the man/machine interface, to the point of making complex machines into 'appliances'. Did anyone ever teach you how to use a microwave? A CD player? Those complex machines have such a simple interface that interacting with them requires almost no thought whatsoever. At that point the machine itself disappears and what remains is the action itself. You are not using the CD player, you are listening to music. You are not manipulating the settings on the microwave, you are cooking food.

Any interface design that requires the user to focus on the interface instead of the desired result is poorly engineered. I work with engineers every day, and they all have this idea that more is better. "What if you want to change the settings?" This is the type of person that focuses on the interface and implementation so much they lose sight of the purpose of the machine.

My goal is not to have infinite control of the microwave. I'm hungry and it's time to eat.

Introductions

I figured that before I just start posting things, I should probably introduce myself.

My name is Kris, and I've been taking things apart since I was 8 years old. (Only recently have I begun to be any good at actually putting them back together, though).

I live in Seattle, WA, USA, and I've worked as a software/firmware test engineer since 2000.
You could say breaking things is my job.

I have always been fascinated by electronics. When I was small, before I knew what resistors and capacitors were, I would take apart broken (and sometimes working, much to my parent's chagrin) gadgets and stare for hours at the tiny, magical cities built on the boards. This sense of wonder has never left me; almost every day I learn something new. But it seems like the more I learn, the number of amazing things out there to learn does not get smaller, only bigger.