Shoutout to the old manuals that came with towers in the 90s

Last week I was digging through a closet at a client's house and found the original manual for their old Dell tower from 1998 with fold-out diagrams of every jumper and connector. Back then you could actually troubleshoot a power issue without watching a 20 minute YouTube video. Anyone else miss having that kind of documentation instead of a quick start card?

3 comments

3 Comments

kellygrant1d ago

Flip through that manual and you realize just how much we've lost in the name of convenience. It's like everything now gets shipped with those tiny quick start cards that show three pictures and expect you to figure out the rest online. I miss when companies actually assumed you wanted to understand how your stuff worked instead of just telling you to download an app. It's part of the bigger trend where everything is treated like a disposable black box you're not supposed to open. Even cars are like that now with computers running everything, no more popping the hood and fixing a simple problem yourself. Why did we decide to hand over all that control for a slightly thinner device?

violag801d ago

Yeah, "disposable black box" is exactly right. I had an old Compaq tower with a manual that had a whole section on how to reseat the RAM and clear the CMOS. Now you're lucky if the quick start card even shows where the power button is. It's like they think we're all just going to throw it away and buy a new one when something goes wrong. Makes you feel like a sucker for even trying to fix it yourself.

wren2301d ago

My coffeemaker died last month and the repair site just shows a QR code to buy a new one.