Dave wrote:
I have an ancient autohelm 1000, probably built when the boat was in 1979.
It stopped working last weekend, so I sent it in to Raymarine for repair.
The day after they got it I got a call from the repair technician. He said
they no longer stock parts for such an old model. But he took it apart,
found a wire that needed to be soldered, made the repair, and said he'd
charge me a modest hourly repair charge. And he'd send it back by overnight
(my cost of course).

How many consumer electronics products do you get that kind of service on?

What kind of service is so impressive?

He fixed the thing and is charging you for it, plus
shipping. That *should* be the way business is conducted.

Goodness, is everybody so corrupted by the
throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one attitude that it's
"impressive" to actually have a service technician who
performs technical service??

DSK