Re: The Rise Of "Frankenstein" Laptops In New Delhi's Repair Markets

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

India has long had a, shall we say, "informal engineering" culture,
where backstreet operators put together improvised machinery of
various kinds from whatever parts are available.
 
Now this extends to assembling working laptops out of the parts of
broken/junked ones
<https://www.theverge.com/tech/639126/india-frankenstein-laptops>.
This allows Indians on low incomes (which is much of the country) an
alternative to unaffordable new-built machines.
 
There is a downside to these operations, and that is the health risks
from exposure to toxic materials.

That bit is pretty vague. The guy they quote as saying "I cough a
lot" just says "We find working RAM sticks, motherboards with minor
faults, batteries that still hold charge and sell it to different
electronic workshops". So if that kills you, computer
builders/repairers/parts-sellers everywhere should be dying off.
Maybe there's someone across the road burning rubbish and making
toxic smoke where they're doing that, but then it's their
environment that's the health problem, not their occupation.

One question that isn't answered in the article is: what OS are these
recycled/refurbished machines running? I can't imagine that Microsoft
would offer Windows licences for them at anything resembling OEM
prices.

Surely they're using hacks to run Windows unactivated, much like
I usually do if I really need to install it (shh!). Win 10 mostly
works without activation anyway.

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