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Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

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Julian
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Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173310

Postby Julian » October 12th, 2018, 3:33 pm

I hope the mods and others will permit a slightly frivolous Friday post but it is a genuine question.

As anyone reading this particular sub forum has probably realised, I'm in the process of replacing my main (only) desktop PC with a new build. Up until today I'd had the replacement PC on my desk with a temporary keyboard & mouse plugged in and HDMI to the second port on my monitor while I set up basic stuff and copied data files across but my previous PC still hooked into the main keyboard/mouse/scanner and other stuff and available to check stuff. A couple of hours ago I got to the point of shutting down my old PC for the last time, unplugging it from all its cables (it lives in a cupboard with all peripherals on long cables) and putting my new PC in its place. I confess that I really felt quite emotional lifting my old PC out of the cupboard and carrying it away(*). I'm not quite sure what all the emotions were - guilt? sadness? loss? - but whatever the mixture of emotions was I was quite surprised at how strong they were! Does anyone else have similar experiences when swapping to a new PC?

I suppose one issue here is that there was actually nothing wrong with my old PC except that I wanted to fit bigger data drives and one thing led to another. If a PC starts acting up or breaks altogether then it's the one clearly to blame for the breakup and there are grudges held but in this case it really isn't it, it's me.

(*) It's sitting on the floor next to my desk at the moment. I haven't quite had the heart to put it away yet or work out where I'm going to put it.

- Julian

Maroochydore
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173327

Postby Maroochydore » October 12th, 2018, 4:55 pm

Julian wrote: I'm not quite sure what all the emotions were - guilt? sadness? loss? - but whatever the mixture of emotions was I was quite surprised at how strong they were!

Fear of the unknown? Will it perform properly or are you in for a long period of adjustments? Better the devil.....

bungeejumper
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173329

Postby bungeejumper » October 12th, 2018, 5:00 pm

My old PCs go through a kind of 7-stages-of-grieving.

The first stage is that I rip out the hard disk and put it in the drawer in case I should ever need to refer to it again. The second stage is where I wonder whether the memory chips are still worth keeping, or whether they'd just screw up any other computer I put them into? (Occasionally I beef up the wife's ancient Acer with a few DDR3s, and it never seems to have caused any problems.)

The third stage consists of using the old machine as a useful shelf under my desk, by which time it's had coffee spilled all over it. The fourth stage is where I reflect that some of the old internal cables might come in handy one day, although I have no idea what for. The fifth stage is when I know I'm finally getting over my loss, because I keep stubbing my toe on the thing and I've already checked whether it's a priceless antique suitable for spares or repair. (It isn't.)

The sixth stage is where I finally take it down to the recycling centre, expecting it to be instantly grabbed for its gold content and suchlike - instead, I get told to bung it in the metals skip, which feels like rather an unworthy end for an old friend. :( Then I drive home, in full mourning for what might have been.

The seventh stage of mourning is when I find that I now have to chuck its successor as well, even though I've only had it for three years, because it's now throwing some obscure system fault that will require more technical knowledge than mere mortals like me will ever possess.

And because it'll cost me £200 and three weeks to get it fixed, and it's easier to say soddit and shell out another £350 for a machine that's guaranteed to work right away, and to keep working for at least a couple of years. I have more important things to do than grieve about 50p per day of lost capital value on a dead desktop. Not very environmental, am I? Pass the self-flagellation instruments, would you? No, whoops, that was stage eight. :lol:

BJ

bungeejumper
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173333

Postby bungeejumper » October 12th, 2018, 5:10 pm

Which reminds me, a propos of nothing. Back in the good old days when hard disks weighed three pounds each and could carry a massive 20 megs of data, you could make an attractive ornament out of them by stripping off the casings and letting all the enormous platters and all the floating heads see the light of day for the first time. A little like cryogenically freezing your pet dog for posterity, I suppose, but it made an interesting talking point which could break the ice at particularly boring parties.

BJ

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173334

Postby jofc » October 12th, 2018, 5:13 pm

Those old platters made nice shiny placemats to put your mug on.

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173455

Postby UncleEbenezer » October 13th, 2018, 11:35 am

I don't get rid of old 'puters until they die on me.

The one exception to that was my last CRT monitor: a big heavy 19" job that had once been my pride and joy. It had sat around for a long time alongside its (flat) successor. The crunch came after I pressed the CRT back into use for its heat in a cold snap in winter, and found it now quite a strain on eyes that had grown used to something better.

I once had a bit of a bereavement process for a big, chunky computer supplied by an employer. In 2010, they were taken over, and my new owner dispensed with the work I was involved in, so they took back their 'puter. My grief was at the prospect of a perfectly good 'puter (including a much classier monitor than mine) going to waste: I hope they use it productively after taking it back, but I fear they may not have done.

ReformedCharacter
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173464

Postby ReformedCharacter » October 13th, 2018, 12:17 pm

I have on my office shelf the motherboard (socket Super 7) of a PC I built. It earned me quite a lot of money, perhaps £50-60k from my programming work. It was a great PC and I only replaced it because I didn't think it was up to running Windows XP. It used to run the last version of Win98 (not the ghastly ME version) and did so very well. I look at it fondly from time to time and think of the dividends that I continue to receive from investing my earnings.

RC

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173485

Postby Breelander » October 13th, 2018, 1:54 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:I don't get rid of old 'puters until they die on me...


Me neither, I like to keep old kit going for as long as possible :)

For years I had a Win'95 laptop I used for on-site IT support. When I retired it was relegated to keeping my accounts and HYP spreadsheets. In fact, it still works today (sort of) being something of a 'Trigger's Broom' by now - kept going with parts cannibalised from others I acquired as spares. I ran out of spare screens and when the screen developed large black bands in random places it got 'retired'. For security I like to use my lowest spec machine as a 'never connects to the internet' machine just for my spreadsheets. That role today is taken by an old underpowered Win7 laptop.

Next 'main PC' was an XP laptop. Emotionally attached? Well, no - but definitely emotionally dependent on the internet. I found out just how dependent I was when it died. Desperate for something (anything) to get me back online ASAP I discovered Cashconverters as an instant source of a replacement. A Toshiba Satellite L750-16L with OEM Windows 7 as it turned out. For some time that was my 'main (aka only internet-connected) PC'.

In fact, Cashconverters are now my PC supplier of choice and at their prices I could afford to build up a collection of laptops so I'd never be 'offline' again. Any one could take the 'main PC' title these days but I'm still fond of the reliable old Toshiba - now getting on for 8 years old (6 of them in my use) and with its HDD now showing a 'powered on' time of two and a half years. Needless to say it's not running W7 any more, it now runs the latest Windows 10 version 1809.

My other laptops are of varying specs, from a humble Intel Atom powered Acer Aspire One D270 10" netbook ('powered on' time of just 48 days) up to an I7 powered Dell Latitude E7440 Ultrabook (219 days). I've never paid more than £200 for any laptop, the Acer being just £79. All are of course on Windows 10 now.

mc2fool
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173535

Postby mc2fool » October 13th, 2018, 5:20 pm

Breelander wrote:In fact, Cashconverters are now my PC supplier of choice and at their prices I could afford to build up a collection of laptops so I'd never be 'offline' again.

A collection?!? Surely you only really need two. The chances of two separate computers going belly up at the same time are fairly small. Not zero of course, e.g. a fire could knock out both, but then what? Are you keeping a third in the garage or at your mate's around the corner?

BTW, in regards to not being 'offline', how many separate broadband connections do you have? (I actually do have a backup, in the sense that my neighbour and I have each others' wifi credentials and have used them when one of our lines has broken.)

Breelander
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173545

Postby Breelander » October 13th, 2018, 5:51 pm

mc2fool wrote:A collection?!? Surely you only really need two...


What can I say? I just can't help collecting them :)

They have different purposes. The aforementioned W7 laptop does my excel spreadsheets and never goes on the internet - so no risk of ransomware getting to it.

The Toshiba L750 is the 'daily driver' machine, while the little netbook is a recent 'take anywhere' addition for holidays and such.

Then there's the test machine/support with Macrium images of Win7 and every edition of Win10 from the original release 1507 up to the latest 1809. This one suffers 'abuse' when I want to test new software or windows itself to breaking point - safe in the knowledge I can restore a pristine system image when done. With the support I do on this and other sites it's not unknown for the test machine to run half a dozen different versions of Windows in as many hours while I'm researching various posters' problems. It's a great help to be able to run the same version of Windows as they have.

Then there's the Dell, with its I7 and 8GB RAM - this one is man enough to run several Hyper-V virtual machines at the same time, currently it has VMs for XP, W7 and W8. Useful for answering networking questions. In fact, it's the only machine I have with a cpu capable of virtualisation, which I why I bought that one.

So, five is probably enough (for now) :D
Last edited by Breelander on October 13th, 2018, 5:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173546

Postby Itsallaguess » October 13th, 2018, 5:54 pm

mc2fool wrote:
Breelander wrote:
In fact, Cashconverters are now my PC supplier of choice and at their prices I could afford to build up a collection of laptops so I'd never be 'offline' again.


A collection?!? Surely you only really need two.


That's really quite dangerous talk for a public bulletin board.

What if my wife were to read such heresy?

:roll:

Itsallaguess

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173547

Postby mc2fool » October 13th, 2018, 6:02 pm

Breelander wrote:
mc2fool wrote:A collection?!? Surely you only really need two...
What can I say? I just can't help collecting them :)

They have different purposes.

Itsallaguess wrote:
mc2fool wrote:A collection?!? Surely you only really need two.
That's really quite dangerous talk for a public bulletin board.

What if my wife were to read such heresy?

I did, of course, mean two for each purpose :D

Breelander
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173548

Postby Breelander » October 13th, 2018, 6:08 pm

mc2fool wrote:I did, of course, mean two for each purpose :D


Now there's an idea....

...perhaps I could do with a few more?

Howard
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173549

Postby Howard » October 13th, 2018, 6:11 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:
mc2fool wrote:
Breelander wrote:
In fact, Cashconverters are now my PC supplier of choice and at their prices I could afford to build up a collection of laptops so I'd never be 'offline' again.


A collection?!? Surely you only really need two.


That's really quite dangerous talk for a public bulletin board.

What if my wife were to read such heresy?

:roll:

Itsallaguess


I tentatively tested this dangerous idea on Mrs H.

Her question was: "Is there a collective noun for a collection of computers?"

All I could think of was a "Megabunch" for up to five and a "Gigabunch" for more than five.

I'm afraid I'm only in the Mega category.

regards

Howard

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173554

Postby XFool » October 13th, 2018, 6:31 pm

Yes, but do you have a Sirius 9000, MS DOS v3.1?

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=210

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173557

Postby Redmires » October 13th, 2018, 6:41 pm

Those old platters made nice shiny placemats to put your mug on.


Try making coasters out of these. 4Mg per side as well.

Image

(As seen recently in the excellent Bletchley Park Computer Museum)

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173559

Postby AleisterCrowley » October 13th, 2018, 6:46 pm

I've still got my first computer back home, although board and case are separate - must put it back together and fire it up at some point if I can find an suitable TV (it displayed on Ch 36)
It's a ZX81, and I loved it. It was a present from parents- they were not well off and £70 (IIRC) was a fair sum in 1981
Just about to hand back my work laptop - HP EliteBook - which has been a solid performer for 10+ years and still working fine, despite being heavy, and battered ( not in a cod & chips sense),
Not sure I like the new ThinkPad but it boots up mega quick and is as light as a feather

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173560

Postby kiloran » October 13th, 2018, 6:47 pm

Redmires wrote:Those old platters made nice shiny placemats to put your mug on.


Try making coasters out of these. 4Mg per side as well.

Image

(As seen recently in the excellent Bletchley Park Computer Museum)

Is the umbrella in case there's a memory leak?

--kiloran

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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173561

Postby XFool » October 13th, 2018, 6:59 pm

4MB per side, huh?

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Does anyone else get emotional about their main PC?

#173564

Postby UncleEbenezer » October 13th, 2018, 7:07 pm

mc2fool wrote:BTW, in regards to not being 'offline', how many separate broadband connections do you have? (I actually do have a backup, in the sense that my neighbour and I have each others' wifi credentials and have used them when one of our lines has broken.)

How useful is that? If you're with the same provider, or if your providers share infrastructure at some point (very likely), you might find your downtime correlated!

Though you may well have a separate backup in the form of your mobile 'phone's signal.


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