Will we be repairing our iPods a hundred years from now?

Published on September 16th, 2023

Posted by Jacob in How to, Strategy, Work

Well, in a hundred years, I’ll probably be death (“Lost off the coast of … in a hurricane”), so this question is mainly relevant for our descendants [for those of you who have such].

In a recent post on the future, frugal bachelor commented:

I doubt the IPOD will be repaired in any conventional sense, yes the raw materials are valuable, it will make more sense to melt the whole thing down and recreate it from scratch. If in 100 years people will take apart an IPOD have a soldering iron and hook an oscilloscope, then we are truly screwed.

Now, it is quite possible that we are truly screwed. I will consider the peak oil predictions well known. Usually, economists, politicians, computer scientists, and other people with no grasp of reality will comment that the economy can grow regardless of falling energy output, this is referred to as increasing the energy intensity. True, if you outsource the energy costs to other countries.

The fact is that running electronics is quite cheap. However, building said electronics, that is, microchips in particular (let’s have a moment of silence for PV panels), is enormously expensive in terms of energy. Depending on exactly how high the price of energy goes, we may very well see a salvage operation and a repair of consumer electronics that goes beyond today’s efforts. And once those chips die, you might not see another one.

Originally posted 2009-08-01 00:01:59.

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19 users responded in " Will we be repairing our iPods a hundred years from now? "

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Stephen said,

Do you think there will soon be a market for configurable/repairable electronics? I envision something like Legos that you can put together to build a radio, remote control, mp3 player, whatever. When one component breaks, replacing or repairing the one broken piece would be cheaper and easier to diagnose than repairing the whole unit and less wasteful than replacing the whole unit. It would be a tinkerer’s dream but also appropriate for the masses.

Knobby Kabushka said,

A small segment of humans, if humanity as a whole survives the next 5 to 10 years, will be WAAAYYYYYYY beyond ipods by 2109.

Frugal Bachelor said,

One thing that could be done is to make all chips reconfigurable FPGA’s (hopefully socketed!), which would aid in their recyclability, unlike nowadays where there is a custom design for every single type of device. Also, if we have something like 3D atomic-level printing, that would basically eliminate the whole silicon fabrication process we have today, although who knows if it would be lower energy?

But my main point was human labor costs, if by then we have computers and robots which are more capable than us, I don’t think it will be worth human time to look at this stuff. The existing computer salvaging industry is quite interesting in its economics – containers full of old American & Euro junk shipped to Asia and Africa, and then people strip the gold and other precious metals out of them.

I of course hope we have a big energy breakthrough within the next 100 years ..

Jacob said,

@Stephen – Does this not still exist? Consumer electronics contains a lot of surface mounted components, but you can still buy “ordinary” components. I built a 20W stereo amplifier some 10 years ago, and I do think that I could fix it, if it ever breaks.

@FB – I agree about the configurability. I think, however, in terms of human labor costs, there seems to be a battle between profitable design and sustainable design. I think such designs could be made today, to be taken apart. They would just be more expensive and people wouldn’t buy them. I hope for fusion power as well. It it the only think with a sufficiently big foot to replace oil and gas.

Knobby Kabushka said,

Where’s my flying car that 1960’s Science Illustrated & Popular Mechanics magazines promised we would all be flying around in by now?

mockum said,

What do you have against computer scientists? We certainly have a better grasp of reality than artists and Latin majors.

Jacob said,

@mockum – I have often seen a tendency to believe that the world can be programmed. Every field tends to suffer from believing its methods can be applied everywhere else and that all the interfaces to other fields will automatically be invented. Many CS seem to have supreme faith in technology.

Stephen said,

@Jacob – Constructing electronics out of components requires a bit more time and effort than buying an iPod. I’m thinking more along the lines of “connect small display, processor, memory, and headphone jack modules” for an mp3 player. It’s like Legos, you know, for kids.

I’ve wanted to learn about electronics but haven’t yet. I’m a controls engineer who uses Matlab. How did you learn, and can you recommend a book on the subject?

Jacob said,

@Stephen – I took some classes back in 9th grade. Mostly soldering and following blueprints, so I basically know how to solder and make print boards with ironchloride and a drill press. Beyond that I did a little bit in lab in the first year at the university (protoboards and opamps.). I have also played with counters and displays. Never graduated to EPROMs though. For the theoretical stuff, Horovitz (big grey book with black lettering) is very very good. For the practical stuff, you’re in luck http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/01/its_learn_to_solder_month.html
Get a 15W soldering iron. You might get away with 20W but don’t go larger. I learned to solder by making grids of copper wire when I was about 8 (also helped that my mom used to be a soldering tech 😉 )—recommended, as you can’t destroy anything valuable like burning out a print board. Then get a simple kit and make that. Then go to bigger kits. Then start making your own boards. The most important thing is to be careful and not rush things.