In the end, the console not only works but looks much closer to “factory new” than I could possibly have hoped, consider

Covered in dirt and grease, partially disassembled, burned by ill-placed cigarettes, missing vital internal components, and sporting bright white paint drips, the console was a mess. If your smartphone, TV, or modern game console were in this kind of condition you’d simply throw it out and buy a replacement. But the NES was built in the 1980s, back when companies didn’t care nearly as much about making money off repairs, and as such, it was salvageable with my bare minimum of technological know-how and my very questionable soldering skills.

On one side are the device manufacturers. Companies like Apple fought tooth and nail to prevent third-party repair shops from offering services for the iPhone, MacBook, and any other devices they sell. The iPhone maker fights against legislation that would make it perfectly legal for non-Apple-affiliate repair shops and individuals to fix their own devices if they want to, even going so far as to introduce a new kind of nonstandard screw head in 2009 to make it that much more difficult to open and repair its laptops and smartphones. Apple provided its own technicians the necessary tools to beat these screws, but for a long time, it was next to impossible to buy one from a third party.

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e sorority girl who faked stomach cancer and had her friends push her wheelchair around to nonexistent chemotherapy appointments; the Alabama woman who stole over $260,000 through social media and two GoFundMe accounts, convincing even her young son that she was dying; the woman dubbed “the photogenic queen” of cancer fraudsters for lying about breast cancer to raise $12,000 in her small community.

In the late 1980s, somebody bought a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) from a physical store, brought it home, and presumably enjoyed it for untold years. The console, with serial number N12180601, suffered greatly in the decades to come, eventually landing on eBay in a condition that can only be described as “junk.” The seller, located in Angleton, Texas, was asking a modest price of $11.99 for the system, which was not only nonfunctional and damaged, but missing a plethora of parts.

Over the course of a couple of weeks, I sauntered down to my basement workshop for an hour or two whenever I found the time. I disassembled, cleaned, checked for missing and damaged parts, and replaced capacitors, among other things. I used basic tools to tackle every issue I came across. I polished the filthy pins that connect the game cartridge to the mainboard, ensured that corrosion on the power unit didn’t break the connection between different components, and bought cheap replacement parts for the components that were entirely missing. I protected various parts with a sealant to prevent future corrosion and even managed to remove the yellowing from the plastic and fix the cigarette burns with a bit of epoxy and some gentle sanding.

He didn’t text me back for a week because he was busy with work, then just forgot. He hasn’t called me in a month because he’s tied up with a family issue. He hasn’t taken me on a real date in weeks, but that’s okay because I’m fine just chilling on the couch watching TV.

These all sound like good excuses — and they are if they’re legitimate. But when it comes down to it, if he wanted to do any of those things, regardless of what’s going on in his life, he’d make the time to do them at some point.

Microsoft’s shiny new Surface Duo received a two out of 10 for being impossible to disassemble without breaking, for example. Microsoft’s Surface Laptop earned the title of the “least repairable laptop” with a score of zero out of 10. The OnePlus 8 Pro received a four out of 10, while the Samsung Galaxy S20 received a three out of 10. On the Apple side, the newest 12.9-inch iPad Pro also scored a three out of 10, while the iPhone 11 received a somewhat encouraging score of six out of 10.

When I dove into the NES repair project I was somewhat intimidated. Sure, it’s an older piece of tech which means it’s less complex than something like a modern laptop or game console, but its age also means there are so many more things that could go wrong. Capacitors die over time, traces on the circuit board can erode away after enduring moisture for an extended period of time (which this particular console clearly dealt with), and the aging CPU and memory chips could easily fail and corrode after sitting in a garage for decades without attention.

All of these large companies push you very, very strongly in the direction of an official repair option, like Apple’s Genius Bar. Or, even worse, buying an entirely new device when that might not be necessary.

I made every excuse for him, but after he ghosted me on our date for New Year’s Eve, I finally said enough is enough. If he wanted to, he would. And he kept showing me over and over again that he did not want to.

As you go about your day with your smartphone in your pocket or toting a pricey laptop around, a war over the guts of those devices continues to rage. More specifically, a war between two sides that want to decide who can and who can’t tinker around inside, modifying the function of the components, or fixing issues that pop-up over time.

I once dated a guy who was terrible at balancing his priorities in his personal life. He often chose to spend his weekends with the boys instead of with me (which he did almost every weekend), and he would give me the bare minimum just enough to keep me around, but wouldn’t commit.

Keep in mind that these scores are simply an indication of how easy it is to get the gadgets open and gain access to vital components. If you have to actually swap something out, the challenge becomes much more intense, as none of these companies are very good about providing parts for DIY repair. Third parties step in to fill the void in most cases, but even then, some functionality is often missing after replacing parts. Good luck using Face ID after replacing an iPhone’s front-facing camera or the True Tone color feature if you replace the iPhone’s screen (even if you’re using an original Apple screen as a replacement).

Consumers fought back, and sites like iFixit exploded in popularity as owners of these devices created platforms for teaching one another how to open, repair, and modify their gadgets without sending them to the manufacturer or waiting for a repair appointment at an authorized repair shop. iFixit rates many new devices on a repairability scale, and the trend is clearly going in the wrong direction, with new smartphones, laptops, and other popular electronics routinely receiving incredibly low scores, indicating that it’s virtually impossible to repair them on your own.