The A3000 worked several years for me, and I never had to open the case. After opening the case it became annoying as ####. Flipping cards in and out did no good to the daughterboard, I got bleeding knuckles and fingertips from every SCRAM upgrade. The connectors weren't good either, I almost destroyed some over the years, it was always difficult to close the case without jamming, at some point the flickerfixer needed adjustment, etc. we can easily agree on this part, that no hardware is perfect, and probably I was just lucky that the stupid battery didn't leak earlier.

I'm not worshipping to the A3000, but at least it did work for that long, and I was a happy customer. The EUR 3000 were well invested for a giant harddisk and a huge amount of RAM at their time, which kept me away from upgrading for a long time. This brings me back to my initial point. Hardware-wise I'm a clumsy fellow, and that's not due to a lack of practise, in fact I had dozens of wires soldered on my c64 and A500, because that was the way I had to practise soldering, that is, by repairing the damage I did elsewhere. :)

I'm not complaining. YOU are complaining about people who are not willing to get a household, garage and parking lot full of tools and spareparts, saws, dremels and desoldering equipment, for repairing everything and their grandmother. I can understand this, because you are never getting some serious work accomplished if you have to take care, cater for and be slave of this ####ing hardware. Who are you to dictate how much other people should care for their stupid hardware? Obviously the Pegasos (like every non-mainstream computer) has some kind problem here, and just because you have a household full of geek tools doesn't mean there is no such problem for other people.

A computer is a tool for me, just like a car or a bike. I'm not repairing this stuff either, I let a good service shop repair things for me, well if there IS one, of course. That's why I'm suggesting Macs to elder relatives, for example. If something breaks, they can visit their dealer, and presto.

It's not only about the costs for the silly tools and the space I need for a proper workplace, it's mainly about not having to WORRY for this kind of crap. I have better things to do with computers, like getting some work done.

Well, and regarding open source hippies... count me into this camp. Btw., what do you think where 99% of the tools from the MorphOS SDK derive? If you are a self-serving ######, you can probably write this stuff yourself, correct? And well, MorphOS, don't get me started on how much of it is allegedly taken from a certain open source project. I don't like to speculate on this.