Interesting conversation.  Gets one thinking.
I am told that in the  70s there used to be tube testers and vacuum
tubes sold at the grocery store.  I guess people, just ordinary
people, would fix their own tvs and radios.  That was also a time
when you could buy an american or german (or even japanese) made TV.

Kids these days may not know how to fix an electrical device (or a
car), but some can code a computer app in short order.

Our vanagons are, with the exception of the digifant/digijet system,
analog devices.  Entirely comprehensible and possible to master, as
demonstrated by many on this list.  I suspect these buses are at the
tail end of an era of vehicles which the owner can participate in the
operation AND maintenance of the vehicle.  On some level it's a
relationship, making the vanagon more than just a transportation
appliance.  Of course it's also a trade off.  We give up things like
power, lower emissions, comfort and safety for this 'relationship'.
Yah, it's a love hate kind of thing.  But when I look back at the
previous decade I don't think of the time I spent driving my ford focus.

Gary Lee
www.vwrack.com

On 14-Aug-08, at 1:43 PM, Mike Elliott wrote:

>
> Well put, Gary. Likewise, the days when young kids could get
> started in electronics by tinkering with their parent's tube radio
> or hi-fi are long gone. Open any piece of modern electronics and
> you'll find nothing in there that can be worked on. Multi-layer
> circuit boards and fine-pitch surface-mount components cannot be
> worked on by normal humans, unlike the exposed wiring and great big
> grabbable components that earlier products contained. I expect that
> old-timey ham radio operators and DIY gadget builders notice that
> "kids these days" don't know how anything electrical works.
>
> --
>
> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
>
> On 8/14/2008 12:12 PM Gary Lee www.vwrack.com wrote:
>
>> Today's young people may be mechanical nitwits, but I wouldn't say
>> they are nitwits.  Not that anybody has, but I gotta stick up for
>> them.
>> Modern cars are very complex.  Complicated cars are harder to repair
>> than simple cars.  Most people would also agree that with that
>> complexity we also get far lower emissions and higher safety than
>> vanagon era cars.  So it's easy to see why repairing one's own car is
>> not within the scope of a lot of people nowadays.
>> Want a simple car?  Too bad we can't buy third world market car in
>> North america.  Like an Indian Tata, it's simple and cheap.  What you
>> loose out on is comfort, safety and lower emissions.
>>

>> Gary Lee
>