I don't know how young you are, so I won't go there, but in my youth, which goes back quite a few decades - stuff wasn't as technologically loaded as it is today (general rule) so it was more feasible to do what you were doing. I used to do some of that too. But it's all changed-up now. My car is basically a computer - there was no such thing in the 1950s. So I learned a lot about fixing-up cars back in those days that on its own isn't too useful today, even though we are still dealing with motors that burn fuel to produce motive power. When something happens with the car (not often - it's a Toyota), in it goes to the people with the comparative advantage to fix it. The technologies we are dealing with in these inkjet printers are for the most part proprietary, they are complex and integrated for each model design, and we're excluded from the critical details of all that, so I just don't bother. I agree that curiosity and critical thinking are really valuable assets - but to be deployed selectively, as prospective. I respect where you're coming from - if we can nurse along older stuff rather than sending it to the landfill or the recycling at significant social and private cost, why not. It's just that these days, technologies, designs, and economics are giving us fewer such options.
