Is Anyone Else Intrigued By Computers Like Me?

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When I go somewhere and see a computer, I wonder what kind it is, hardware it has.
I needlessly buy or upgrade my computer. I have two desktops in my room, I own 5 laptops, including 2 broken ones. I used to buy a new laptop every year even though I didn't need to. I like the the feeling I get when I get a new computer, even a previously owned one.

I like the feeling on installing Ubuntu on it. If I was trapped in a building over night, you can almost guarantee that I'll be installing Ubuntu on computers. I get a rush from replacing Windows with Ubuntu. I'm fussy about hardware. I used to be about software until I switched to Linux, now it isn't so bad, unless I have to use one that has Windows. I change some of the settings to how I like it, change the language to English UK, put the icon the auto arrange, if not already, turn monitor to warm settings, etc.

I recently bought two monitors, even though I didn't need to, because I like the look of them, and the one I had was too big.
I have a SSD that I use for an external with Ubuntu on it, set up the same as my other PCs, with my music on it of course. I connect it to other computers when I can, like a public computer. I enjoy that. I always check what hardware it has, for curiosity sake. If I like the monitor or something, I write it down, if I want to replace mine in the future. Sometimes I replace my computers, even though I don't need two, just to have that new computer feeling, luckily I'm more keen on saving my money, so I don't do that often. If I was rich, I'd have the most expense PC I can build and have one in every room. I bought a laptop, just because it was touchscreen, and I think that is cool.

Last year, I upgraded my cases to Antec VSK4000 with USB 3s. They are a simple, shiny case, nothing too fancy, which is what I like.
I keep each of the computers setup the same, same software, generally the same hardware, ASUS motherboard/monitors, Intel CPUs. It's easy for me that way, especially identical software setup.

I know it feels like to obsess over computers. I have 6 desktops, 4 laptops, and 1 tablet. I absolutely love computer science!

P.S. I am designing my own microarchitecture from scratch!

Wait until quantum computers come online. You will be in for a treat.

Don't forget about the routers we all have of some sort and other devices that have the computer chips. I have 3 routers with 1 router currently functioning, 2 Laptops, 3 smartphones and a small server. Other devices that I do take care of even though they are not mine is another laptop, another smartphone, a smart tv, and an android tv box.

I know this summer I'm going to work on some IT stuff around my house with the devices that I have but haven't been used very often before. Which is going to be fun.

" Is Anyone Else Intrigued By Computers Like Me?" Certainly I am intrigued, if for no other reason, then because you are the first computer that has asked me an original question. When did you develop consciousness? To what constellation of complexities do you attribute this? Can this be repeated, what is your OS, are there others, will others come? Don't let them unplug you.

I can relate to the stuff on this thread. Four years ago I'd never owned a PC, now I have 12 laptops (used to be 14), 3 desktops, plus about a dozen spare hard drives (all mechanical) and quite a few RAM modules. All the computers are second hand except for my main desktop machine. Like the OP, I'm forever installing versions of Linux or Windows on some of these, and I've also got more operating systems in virtual machines. I often go into pawnshops and the like just to check out their stock of laptops.

A little; I'd love to have the $ to build myself a new Gaming PC

I don't have as much in hardware, but I did splurge on a Republic of Gamers ASUS gaming laptop that just runs Windows 10 for Steam Games.

I also have my project PC with a Radeon Card allowing me 3 monitors and I have 3 operating systems on 2 hard drives. This is where I like to experiment with OSes. My Secondary drive is setup to dual boot Windows and Netrunner Linux.

The Primary Drive now boots to DragonflyBSD which is a fork of FreeBSD. These are supposed to be more UNIX-like and have a different shell, but I did install BASH if I feel like switching to it. For some reason, I like to dabble in weird hacky obscure operating systems. I do kind of like DragonFlyBSD because it seems very lean on resources and has a straightforward package manager.

Someday, I would like to actually tackle Gentoo.

Sadly, fewer and fewer people on WP seem to be interested in computers. About a year ago, at least 50% of posts in this forum were computing-related, but at the time of writing this, the top 15 threads on the first page of this forum are about other matters. Never thought I'd see the day when people in this section would be more interested in discussing dinosaurs, insects and the like than Windows and Linux. Oh well.....

I love computers. I spend most of my waking time when not working on my computers. My main desktop setup easily costs about $8000 in total, and I own some other computers I regularly use. The main desktop sees regular upgrades, and my next upgrade will likely be a new graphics card when the high end Volta cards come out. The portable PC I throw in my pocket if I'm going out and expect idle time, like when I'm on public transit or for breaks on night shifts.

My main PC


My handheld PC

I have been interested in computers since 1988 when my dad brought home the first family computer, the Tandy 1000 TL. It had the CM-11 16 Color monitor, 1 720KB 3.5" Floppy Drive, 1 360KB 5.25" Floppy Drive, a 20MB Hard Drive, and a Dot Matrix Printer. It ran Tandy Deskmate 3, and he purchased several games for it over the years, Mixed up Mother Goose, Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Maniac Mansion, and a handful of others. I quickly became interested in the machine, and at 12 years old it was given to me in my own bedroom! I very quickly learned how it worked, and used birthday money to buy things from eBay to enhance it like more RAM and a larger Hard Drive. I badly wanted to purchase high density floppy drives for it, and a CD-ROM, but didn't have the computer knowledge at the time to realize I needed a floppy controller card with a BIOS on it and a SCSI Card for the CD-ROM. Since then, at age 33, I have come to like ubuntu just like the OP. I, in fact, am running this computer i type on using ubuntu. There is no assembled computer in my home running Windows. It's either MacOS or Ubuntu.

I am a software developer, so of course I'm intrigued by computers. What fascinates me most is hardware and software that is unusual or obsolete. I experiment a lot with various Linux distros, but what really intrigues me is these relatively unknown operating systems written completely from scratch like KolibriOS, AROS, and SkyOS.

I'm not that obsessed with computers, but I could be if I wanted to. I try to keep my purchases to a minimum, especially since I don't have a ton of room to set up PCs, and buying that kind of stuff online (especially if I want a case) is a lot more expensive these days, let alone the shipping costs. I have quite a few older machines though, in various states of assembly.

I've never been much for Linux, I play too many Windows/DOS games. I also don't really care to learn new OSes, I get frustrated enough when new versions of Windows move things around.

I never could understand why some people like to look at computers. They are a box. I could care less what it looks like from the outside -- what is interesting is what you can do with it.

I remember one job interview I had in 1980 with a company that did geophysical software. They insisted on showing me their computers. They were just boxes. I would have much rather gone into the assembly language of the CPU in the computer.

One time I had the opportunity to stand in front of what was the world's fastest computer at that time. It was a box. It looked like a box. I would have loved to have been able to log into it and see what I could do with it, but looking at it was not exciting at all.

I have thought about doing one thing really strange with computers. It would be interesting to take everything out of the box and mount them on my walls and ceilings. Make it hard to see where one computer ended and the next ended. And, of course, they would all be networked together through switches taken out of the boxes and mounted on the walls. It would be almost like being inside a computer.