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Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies affecting new tractors are behind the continuing rise in popularity of the models. Particularly in the midwest, farmers are finding that 40-year-old tractors do the job with less trouble and expense.
Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days — and it's not because they're antiques.
Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren't as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.
"It's a trend that's been building. It's been interesting in the last couple years, which have been difficult for ag, to see the trend accelerate," said Greg Peterson, the founder of Machinery Pete, a farm equipment data company in Rochester with a website and TV show.
Previously;
Reeducating Legislators on the Right to Repair (2019)
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair (2018)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Thursday January 09 2020, @11:39PM (4 children)
Oh, they do. A lot.
For my tiny, old 2006 Smart fortwo, there are digital restrictions in place that keep you from swapping out certain modules. The not-even-a-car Renault Twizy was closed with an "upgrade" at some point in its lifecycle that kept you from doing a few useful things, non-upgraded models are sought after. The Nissan GT-R R35 was said to have "unbreakable" firmware (but eventually some English companies managed to do mods). So it's everywhere.
Add to that, that old-school mechanical workshop floor mechanics have no idea about, say, "bus termination of differential signaling multi-drop controller area networks" so more confusion arises when they pull a works stereo and the poor ECU goes into panic mode, because it can no longer talk to the cruise control buttons. (From the sound of the words they'd probably think that's a big bus stop in a communist country, rather than a little plug that goes at the end of the strange wire that they just pulled out of the radio...). Not intended as such, but practical restrictions management.
Aside from the Smart, I've got two late 80s/early 90s classics that have 4th Gen GM ECUs. These are still something that can be tackled, the code sits in an EPROM and is 68HC11, although the logic flow is said to be in a very unreadable linear sequence. Also, part of the "personality" module is an analog resistor module (the "CAL" part of the 4th Gen MEMCAL, or of the the 3rd Gen MEMPAK/CALPAK duo) that, last time I looked, no one on the open internet had understood. I'll keep those cars, just as some of the most American farmers now start looking at ex-Soviet tractors from Belorussia...
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 10 2020, @12:05AM (2 children)
You can always unbolt the EFI and strap on carburetors and a mechanical spark distributor...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday January 10 2020, @02:20AM
Tough luck for me. It's a direct injected diesel. But I've seen conversions to Hayabusa 1300 engines. The little bubble gets a little more bubbly with those. :) Kind of defeats its purpose for me, though. I'd rather swap out the drive unit for an electric one. Really perverse: A mechanic who knows the car can swap the whole rear-axle-engine compound in under an hour, but it's impossible to swap any electronics module without dealership "programming". OTOH, the car is so simple that anyone with decent Arduino attitude could hack out fitting firmware in a month - well, bar the complicated emission test detection and defeat logic :P
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday January 10 2020, @06:47AM
Or an aftermarket fuel injection system. And some of them use GM PCMs. I'm fixin' to build a programming interface...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @12:38AM
VW has a nice trick. The “radio” is main computer with GPS input. So it is the NTP for the whole car. If you pull or it fails the car shuts down. Can not control the timing of the injectors.