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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: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 10 2020, @12:00AM
Our newest is a 2002, it was an "advanced luxury model" at the time, and it's about to get sold because it's flaking out too much.
1999 didn't seem to be too bad - our 1999 pickup truck has some gremlins in the seat belt control module - fairly easily controlled, and the ECU does weird stuff just after first startup if you idle too long, but give it a reboot and it still runs fine at 140,000 miles. We also have a 1999 Miata which seems to be mostly free of cyber-gremlins.
Then I've got a 1991 Miata - and it's engine is about ready for replacement (long story, don't ask) - it's been running on an aftermarket ECU since 1997 just fine, and I think the replacement ECU to go with the new engine is looking like a Megasquirt - more open than the Link it has.
If I had all the time in the world to track one down and build it, I'd like to have a ~1969-70 GM A body like the Buick Skylark or similar, new 350 V8 crate motor, open source controlled EFI system on it - I just can't figure out the ideal transmission. Manual would be O.K., I'd actually rather have an automatic in the car but the old automatics are so horribly inefficient and I don't know of any new ones that I would trust the software in.
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