by Nationaal Archief

Once, in living memory, most technology was not particularly reliable and many items broke down on a fairly regular basis. Even relatively low tech Items like a pop up toaster used to have to get its elements either replaced or rewired every so often. Light bulbs were all incandescent and used to burn out every few 100 hours. (There were some places where on could buy light bulbs rated for a slightly higher voltage so the light was marginally dimmer but they used to burn for thousands of hours instead).

Within every town and suburb there was some little guy who owned a general repair shop. He would undertake repairs for all sorts of appliances, from Vacuum cleaners needing belts replaced or motors rewound, to refrigerators and washing machines.

Hi Fi equipment, TVs and Video recording units were likewise expensive to begin with and when they had a failure you had to find someone to repair it. These repair technicians were somewhat more specialised but nevertheless existed and serviced a niche in the market.

However over the last 20 years things have changed considerably. For a start electronics has improved hugely. Thus many electronically controlled items are designed and built to last. And last they do. Electronic components are usually soldered onto a printed circuit board and nothing is really serviceable.

The other point is that many appliances are now no longer particularly expensive. One no longer would even think about repairing a toaster or a kettle. Vacuum cleaners tend not to break but when they go faulty purchasing a new unit is no longer a budget breaking expense.

If the control unit of an appliance becomes faulty the chances are, if a repairman will undertake to even look at it, he will rip out and replace the circuit board without any attempt to trace its fault.

In the days when computer monitors were still cathode ray tubes the technician would explain that you could purchase a new one for little more than he would charge to even open a faulty one. Nowadays with electronic circuit boards and LCD and even LCD screens there definitely no service parts so if you have one go faulty on you, and it is out of your service warranty period there is almost nothing for it but to purchase a replacement.

Imagine therefore the chagrin of the Xbox 360 owner when failures started to occur soon after launch. Many of these faults were minor software errors which were corrected by upgrades but other became more serious.

The LED lights on the on/off switch normally glow green when everything is functioning as it should.

If one of these LEDs started showing red then an error has occurred. These were usually minor and could be reset by switching the unit off and on again. But one in particular got the name ‘The red ring of death’

The commonest cause is over-heating and it could be reset by switching off and letting it cool in a well ventilated place for an hour. If not, and it is out of guarantee there are Xbox repair instructions on line.