Comment by reaperducer

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation

For a short time in college I worked fixing stereos at a big-name electronics company's east coast repair facility. You could always tell the gear that people had tried to fix themselves before sending it back to us as a last resort. We didn't begrudge them trying on their own. In fact, it was encouraged because home repairs kept the cost of maintaining the repair facility down.

These days, since everything gets chucked in the garbage when it breaks, I guess that logic doesn't work anymore.

As an aside, the Commodore 64 didn't come with the schematics, but they were part of the Programmer's Reference Guide, which many people had, and could be bought in most bookstores.