[aristus]

It's an anti-geek arms race that I have never liked. I worked at an authorized Nintendo shop almost 20 years ago. "Regular" Torx screwdrivers, the kind you can pick up for nothing today, were hard to come by back then. They cost something like $50 direct from Nintendo. Every new model required some special tool for no reason except to make it harder for Joe Blow to take things apart. I understand the many reasons for it, but it's still anti-geek, physical DRM.

[hugh3]

Anti-geek? What could be more geeky than owning a five-point security torx screwdriver?

[aristus]

...not having to buy them? Being a geek is not about owning toys. It's about being open, curious, and observant.

There are hundreds of these types of screwheads now. The regular Torx used to be a security screwhead. Now that everyone has a Torx they whip out a 5-pointed Torx, call that one the "security" version and start the stupid cycle over again. This excludes people from hacking and learning, eg children.

[GHFigs]

This excludes people from hacking and learning, eg children.

That's nostalgia talking, I think. I took apart a lot of things when I was a kid, too, and put most of them back together plus or minus a few screws--but I just learned everything there is to learn from taking apart this particular thing in five minutes over the internet, a thing vastly more hackable with vastly more to learn from that I would have gladly traded in my screwdriver for back then.

[aristus]

You have a good point there. But I respectfully suggest that you haven't learned everything there is to learn from a set of photos.

[jonhendry]

Well, you won't learn what happens when you short those two solder pads right there... and end up with a brick.

[jws]

The regular torx was never intended as a security screw head. It was just designed for powered assembly in an environment where screw driver bits are consumables.

Matching the 3 screwdrivers in the kitchen's "everything drawer" was not part of the design specification.

[rubidium]

Thank you jws for the sanity here. It's not "anti-geek", it's engineering and manufacturing (and, I may add, keeping 5-year old Timmy from opening his dad's new MacBook Air and frying the innards with the screwdriver they keep in the kitchen drawer).

Not to be too negative, but if you can't find a way to quickly get inside, maybe you shouldn't be there in the first place. A real tinkerer/geek knows how to make their own tools in no time.

[aristus]

I think you are confusing two kinds of exclusivity: that from real technical challenge which teaches you something (eg how to correctly disassemble a machine) and that from random speedbumps (eg an exotic screwhead).

Have you tried to make a Torx head? I suppose you could get the shape with some kind of mouldable plastic or epoxy, but that's probably not strong enough in practice. They are designed to be set with much higher torque than Philips, hence the name.

[aristus]

It was designed for manufacturing, but it was often used as a weak security feature precisely because no one had the bits.

[illumin8]

It doesn't cost $50 to buy the tools you need to open any hardware:

http://www.ecrater.com/p/6143994/security-bits-set-tamper-pr...

[jws]

Are you sure about that? I don't see the 5 sided Torx-Plus bits.

But then I'm also not certain that the new MBA uses a Torx-Plus, the recess' lobes look a little too circular.