Today i threw out an old computer. I don't really feel sentimental about any pieces of technical equipment these days, but I've had this computer a long while and it has served me very well. I'm not really nostalgic about the machine, but I may be nostalgic about the things I used it for and how it marked certain changes in my life. Kind of like an old chair.
This was an NEC PowerMate V133, which ran a Pentium 133 and had I think 32MB of RAM when I bought it, which I thought was extravagant. It's very likely the RAM was upgraded somewhere along the line. I got the computer when I was a high school freshman. Mr. Hackney was jealous of it.
I used this computer to write pretty much everything I wrote in High School. I wrote a paper about my favorite short story, "The Toynbee Convector," on this computer. I wrote a paper about gender roles in the X-Files on this computer. I wrote my college entrance essays on this computer.
The first time I listened to a Star Wars soundtrack, it was through the CD player on this computer. When I sang "Saying Goodbye" on senior day, I typed out a crib sheet with the lyrics and chords on this computer. The first computer program I ever wrote ran on this computer.
I got a new computer when I went off to college (a notebook which died unceremoniously midway through my senior year). Sometime after that, the NEC, which stayed at home, got Debian linux installed on it. It wasn't really fast enough to run any of the fancy GNOME or KDE things, but I didn't really use it so much - only when visiting from school.
After moving back home after college, I used it as my main machine until I just couldn't take it anymore (probably about a month) and hooked up the one I am still using now (the one which replaced the notebook). The NEC became a mail server which ran and ran and ran and ran very quietly and very dependably until one day its power supply up and died.
I do name my computers, but not the way most people do; I reuse the names as the functions change. The first name the computer in question had was calvin, but later on the computer I'm using now became calvin and the machine I just threw out became "box." I called it that because all of my computer names are from calvin and hobbes, and when I first put linux on it, it felt like a computer should: like it had taken on the qualities of calvin's cardboard box. If I only turned it on its side, it could do anything I imagined.
adjective i assign to this entry:
ReplyDeletePOIGNANT.
also, can i read your essay on gender roles in the X-Files? b/c that sounds awesome. also, why the hell did you write that? in high school, no less???
Yes, very poignant indeed. I am going to put on my old angry man sitting on his porch hat now and say you had it good. My first computer was a cobbled together 100Mhz P1 with 8MB of RAM. It was the first computer I ever had and I'm pretty sure my dad shelled out an obscene amount of money for it. In fact, just remembering this makes me want to write him a check to reimburse him. Ah well. It ran DOOM, and it got me on the Internet (first website I ever went to? Microsoft.com). It was the computer where I discovered the dizzying highs and oh-so-lows of websurfing. I'm pretty sure I upgraded later on to a staggering 16MB of RAM and a 28.8K modem (from 14.4).
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