In this technological age, life can be viewed as a series of electronic repairs and upgrades. Some days seem more like the classic revolt of the machines, but instead of taking over they go on strike and quit working, creating as they do the elements of Dante's underworld. Such was this day, with acrid smoke and searing flame, wrought with a sense of doom. I was spared the blissful ignorance that most enjoy, since I had to fix all of it. With the soldering iron always close, with whatever components happened to be at hand, let's just fix it here.

Working in a repair shop, I deal constantly with the results that surges and young children have on electronics. There are the people who work on their own stuff, and the conspiracy people who believe someone is doing something to their electronics. Then there are those so dependent on some electronics that replacement is out of the question, this reel-to-reel tape deck must be repaired. Unfortunately, parts are sometimes unavailable in as little as two years after production.

The electronic world has always been in transition, with competition and innovation driving the price down. Now, more than ever obsolescence is engineered in with the ubiquitous laser diode. The truth is your old turntable will last thirty years, but your new DVD player may take three years of good use and then the laser will fail. That is, if the spindle motor doesn't fail first. Compared to CD's, the tighter specifications of the DVD format present more of a challenge to the laser pick-up assembly, hence DVD is less forgiving of scratches and dirt. Replacement will be costly, and the newer, cheaper models will be gleaming on the shelves. A similar situation exists with the surround sound processor. They sound great when they're new, but the high integration on the digital processing board results in very fragile traces and via interconnects between board layers. The electrolytic capacitors installed on the board will start to leak the corrosive electrolyte. This results in destruction of the board, and the loss of the surround function in the receiver. Camcorders also are prone to this kind of failure. It is generally not repairable; the board should be replaced. The politics of replacement results in a decreasing percentage of component-level repairs. The result is that in repair shops across America, used boards lie in heaps in company bone yards where the technician will go to rip out needed spare parts. It often is a nostalgic

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