windows h& linux history 1837

Pre-Centrino Pentium-III laptop is fine with XP SP2.

You could do this yourself with the soldering iron too. Also the books were available, on TVs for instance. They included the explanation of the schematic design and the diagnostic steps.

There were also people who runned this business as private persons, though it was prohibited in the USSR (also prohibited in any democracy without registration at tax office and paying taxes, and the guys surely paid no taxes).

Yes, and this was a major drawback of USSR's electronics. When Panasonic used 2 custom PCBs with several custom-made chips in their TVs since 70ies, USSR used 6-7 PCBs with lots of tiny standard transistors as long as in late 80ies - even though the SECAM signal path chipset was already stolen from Philips these days

Also the Soviet electronic components were known low quality, looks like the factories (except the military ones) had no QA at all.

For instance, the well-known small orange plastic KT315 transistor (stolen from some Japanese design), probably the most well-known Soviet electronic component - had the body able to accumulate wet! Frying the transistors in kitchen and then covering them with some paint improved their characteristics a lot!

Also the KU221 thyristor used in horizontal hold generator in most TVs of 80ies. 90% of these parts were mis-manufactured. A known figure, thus the "glorious" quality of these TVs - broke once per half-year or such.

...on the black market (usually stolen from the factory or lab by its employees

Yes, great education. USSR even had lots of periodic magazines for electronic fans with some schematic for some electronics (even Hi-Fi audio amplifiers) built off the standard highly-available components.

Self-made amplifiers were rather common in the USSR, especially at some facilities (schools etc), but for home use too.

Correct. Looks like using highly-custom components to build devices provides more quality and reliability then using some very-much-standard as USSR did. The design becomes simpler with highly-custom components.

Modern devices like washing machines effectively are built from small number main components. For instance, the washing machine like Electrolux has a) motor b) electronic unit c) all of the rest, each of these items costing 1-3 of the machine cost. So, any serious repair will require around 1-3 the machine cost - you replace the whole unit.

Also - in 2000ies, the decline in consumer equipment quality is noticeable, compared to 70-80-90ies. Modern equipment works for warranty period, then breaks very, very often - with post-warranty repair cost being up to 1-2 the new device cost.

IIRC the photo camera makers were allowed to use FAT for free.

-- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation