I treat my Computers as if they had soul is that personifying strange …?

[asifnaz]

Last day my wife asked me to throw ayway my 13 year old Pentium 3 computer which according to her was too old and taking a lot of space. TBH I felt offended . I would not say that old computers are like family members to me but they are at-least a dear pet ( I mean like your favurite dog, cat etc )
When I bought new computer the older was placed on the floor in the corner and it seemed like a little puppy complaining for being ditched . I cleaned it wiped HD to format XP and installed Debian (Ubuntu was slow on it with 256 BM ram only )


As a guy who has practically grown up with computers formost of my life and is an enthusiastic collector of them, I couldn't help butfeel some empathy for the poor old computer.

So what are you comments ..? anybody here shares my feelings ..?

[Bucky Ball]

Interesting and not uncommon. And not just having these feelings about computers, but about inanimate objects in general. How do you feel about throwing away a comfortable pair of shoes or a shirt which is falling apart and no longer of practical use? Ah, the shared experience. You might find this of interest:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=feelings+for+objects

Taken to the furthest extreme, there are those who have stronger feelings than even you're having and commit to long-term relationships (even marriage) with objects. This is tied up with something called 'objectum sexuality'. I saw a show not not long ago about it and a woman on that had a failed relationship with the Eiffel Tower. On the rebound, she got together with a ferris wheel (not sure if that's called the same thing in the US) and spent a considerable amount of her own money (US$100,000+) getting it restored and transported to her yard so they could be together.

It is also not uncommon for those considered to be in the autistic spectrum to have strong feelings for objects.

I find this topic quite fascinating, actually. Must be the anthropologist in me.

[PJs Ronin]

With each computer I have owned I have got to know it intimately. I could normally tell when something was going to go wrong, before calamity struck. Subtle nuances in speed and sound warned of viruses, wayward programs or even chip failure. Many of these computers had names, but most did not. Perhaps this can be seen as anthropomorphism, but I never really considered them anything other than lumps of plastic and metal that had better damn well do as I tell them, or there will be trouble.

[Bucky Ball]

LOL. And a hello from Oz also.

Yea, I forgot that. I always had names for them but I seem to have stopped addressing them by name over the past decade or so to the point where I've forgotten what they are. Hang on, now I think about it, that's not true!

[asifnaz]

I don't have any Hoarding Disorder and I throw away shoes and cloths when I don't need them . I have those feeling for computers only and when I go to visit my F&F and see a computer (desktop or laptop ) abandoned eating dust I ask them I could adopt it and most of the time I get it (like you would adopt a pet )

I take it to home thoroughly cleanse it repair it (If required ) and put some Linux distro on it and give it a proper desk to sit and actually use it here and there so that it don't feel neglected .

There is no romantic bonding and my emotions are mild , I mean they are not effecting my social life and I do it in my leisure time as a hobby .

Such feelings I have for one other thing as well , for my home . I mean it is my worst nightmare to lose my Home and I wonder how people sell their homes . Even I have refused to re-build my home as I love the way it looks like despite the fact it is old

[grahammechanical]

It is a male thing. Men have been giving names to machines even before they were mechanical. They name motor cars, boats, ships, aircraft, large guns and before that engines of war, such as catapults.

Don't worry. This will not be a problem until the machines start talking back to us as if we are real people that they have affection for.

Regards.

[Linuxratty]

It is a male thing. Men have been giving names to machines even before they were mechanical. They name motor cars, boats, ships, aircraft, large guns and before that engines of war, such as catapults.
Regards.

No it's not,women do this too. I have a female friend whose care is Lee, a tg friend whose' car is snowflake.
People I know of both sexes name their computers.

[Barsoom88]

My first computer was a $1500.00 386 Gateway that never operated right out the box, so I've never really grew attached maybe too anxious the relationship would just be bad from the start.

[qyot27]

My main setup is twelve years old and has a P3-era Celeron in it (it came with 256 MBs of RAM, but a few years ago I doubled it to 512, after also installing a GeForce 6200 in it). When you spend a long time working on it and keeping it in good shape/doing upgrades, it's a waste to just get rid of it. This thing's survived two different PSU blowouts over the last decade and that's about the worst thing that's ever happened to it. It's still going strong, even if the 2011 Sandy Bridge-based iMac we have runs circles around it. There's a reason the Pentium III got a reputation as a workhorse, after all.

I mean, I'd love it if I got a newer computer since I wouldn't have to wait so long for things to compile (FFmpeg takes 3+ hours to build on here) and to be able to watch videos without having to convert them to a less burdensome format/resolution first, but when that happens this machine will probably get a new job as a file server or something.

There's just no need to throw it out if it's not broken. Patience is a virtue.

[RichardET]

Last day my wife asked me to throw ayway my 13 year old Pentium 3 computer which according to her was too old and taking a lot of space. TBH I felt offended . I would not say that old computers are like family members to me but they are at-least a dear pet ( I mean like your favurite dog, cat etc )
When I bought new computer the older was placed on the floor in the corner and it seemed like a little puppy complaining for being ditched . I cleaned it wiped HD to format XP and installed Debian (Ubuntu was slow on it with 256 BM ram only )


As a guy who has practically grown up with computers formost of my life and is an enthusiastic collector of them, I couldn't help butfeel some empathy for the poor old computer.

So what are you comments ..? anybody here shares my feelings ..?

I have a 12 year old Sun Blade 100 which I still use with OpenBSD. Ten years ago it seemed pretty fast and cool, but now it is very slow; Firefox loads very slowly, but doing Unix stuff on it is a blast; It connects to the internet fine.
It only has wired ports, but I use an old wireless bridge and it connects like a charm. I was thinking of giving it away, not sure though.