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Dealing with Outdated Automotive Software?
Jan Hendrik Montag asks: "My car mechanics had problems to fix a problem in electronic motor management with my 14 yr old Audi. That was not too surprising. But as my mechanic consulted a Volkswagen/Audi-company, they received the answer, that my car is too old and they don't have the appropriate devices and software to read my cars' mind. I just wonder, what will happen in 20 or 30 years to then-vintage-cars from today? Shouldn't there be a necessity to declare old car-software and diagnostic devices open-source just to make sure a collector then can repair his/her car just as it is possible to repair an old car from the 60's? Or will those cars be doomed in case of failure? What would be a solution?"
Dear Slashdot...
My old Pentium 133mhz computer had some problems. I took it to a repair shop, but they said it was too old to work on and that nobody knew windows 95 anymore. What should I do?
Find a better repair shop!
Seriously, cars in the late 70's had primitive computer systems[1] - when something fails, you go to a mechanic that knows how to fix it. The electronics are pretty durable, so even if the part can't be bought new, something ripped from a junked vehicle should work. (I saw another post that mentioned 3rd party control systems that can be made to work with a variety of vehicles, this could be another choice.)
As for diagnostic machines, the US vehicles from the time had the ability to ground a pin and read the codes from a blinking idiot light. The mechanic only needs to have the books to look up the trouble codes.
*sigh* Seriously, slashdot, this is a piss poor question. Learn a bit about cars, then ask intelligent questions.
[1] Primative computer systems, but still technically computer systems.