Recently, a personal computer I built around seven years ago for one of my older brothers died. All heads turned to me since I’m “Uncle Computer Guy” (as my older nephews occasionally call me). Since I have evolved from lowly PC technician to the higher life form of software engineer, I was somewhat reluctant but filial piety won out.
Confucius would be proud.
Out of the back of a bottom drawer came my old computer repair kit, primarily consisting of the primary tools of the trade: a magnetized Philips head screwdriver and a giant flat head screwdriver. These days, most screws on a desktop computer are Philips head, making the Philips head screwdriver the one absolute necessity for PC hardware repair. My personal belief is that the giant flat head screwdriver is also necessary but not for screws. It’s primary purpose is prying apart stubbornly attached components.
Most of the other tools sold in an over-the-counter PC repair toolkit like they used to sell at CompUSA are redundant. Not that I haven’t had to use other tools on occasion. Once I needed to install a 4 speed CD-ROM in an old Compaq that my dentist had inherited. It had been a corporate workstation so there was a lock on the back of the case to keep all of those employees who love messing with PC hardware during business hours. I had to use a hacksaw to open the case. Other proprietary cases were almost equally nightmarish, taking hours not to actually deal with the hardware but with the nightmares of industrial design that they’d encased the hardware in. Proprietary PC manufacturers seemed to be in a constant race with each other as to who could come up with the most idiotically designed and poorly manufactured computer case.
When I was building systems for people a decade ago, most of the time I would force them to buy a better quality case than they would get from a proprietary PC vendor like Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, or Dell. My observations of contemporary proprietary systems hasn’t improved my opinion of these companies’ industrial design skills. While Apple’s industrial design for cases remains unmatched, industrial design by PC manufacturers remains consistently and bafflingly poor. Though many earlier Apple cases are equally awful from a PC repair perspective, Apple towers in the Jobs era have been excellent. The ideal computer case can be summed up in one word: foldout.