Random Thoughts # 6 - Time for a new computer?

There is a question mark in the post title because I'm not certain that the current PC has fully outlived it's usefulness or if it's just that bits of it and the operating system that have.  The PC is ten years old and still does 95% of what I need it for with no problems.  The areas where it is showing it's age are the operating system and an annoying file handling problem.

My computer is a little more modern than this, really it is! (Babbage's Difference Engine)

The machine runs Windows 7 and support ended earlier this year.  So no more security updates or software patches.  I tried to upgrade to Windows 10 but for some reason the hardware or the software doesn't want to install it.  Which is annoying as the actual hardware is still fine for everything I want the computer to do, with the exception of the other fault.  When ever I try to move a file between applications I get the dreaded blue screen of death and a memory overflow error message.  So I can't move images between the PC and blogger and if I try to embed a file into an email the system crashes.

I can't complain I suppose 10 years is a good run in PC terms, I don't think any of my previous machines have lasted anywhere close to this long.  Thinking back we got our first family PC back in 1999 which was a purpose built machine to get the sound and graphics and internet we wanted to play online computer games.  It was a big old beast running Windows 95 or 98, with a dial up modem that would drop out after an hour, or it may have been two, the point being that Internet access was rationed back then before broadband and fibre.  In the end we paid extra to have a commercial BT internet connection that didn't time out!

Remember this?  Internet connections got faster......eventually

Since then we have progressed to a two computer household, plus a couple of tablets and the ubiquitous smartphones so I don't think bandwidth is the limiting factor any more.  After that first machine I have run a couple of desktops; an HP and a MESH neither of them came near to the Acer I'm currently sat typing on, in reliability.  When we bought this one we spent what was needed to get as near to a state of the art home machine as possible and it has paid off.  What is strange though is that given the speed with which my earlier machines became obsolete so little in the design specifications have moved on in the last decade.  Yes the tech inside has changed to become more efficient but in general the results that tech generates are pretty much the same, either that or what I want from a PC hasn't moved on much in the last decade.  What has changed beyond all recognition is the infrastructure.  Net connections just happen as soon as the PC is turned on no more long waits while a modem dials in, no more data limits, no more time outs.  I'm not sure how I coped back in the day.

I suppose I will have to bite the bullet and buy a new PC.  It just goes against my frugal Northern mindset to have to replace something when it is still doing 95% of what I want!

So why Elenderil

I have a number of aliases from role playing games.  There is Del Gethlin the sneaky Scout and Intelligence Operative from playing Traveller back in the 1980s,  El Cid or more commonly Cid a real world nick name from my teens and of course Elenderil himself.

Elenderil was a 'fighter magic user' class character firstly in Tunnels and Trolls,who then migrated into Dungeons and Dragons gaming when that became popular in my university days.  He first sprang to life in 1973 and after I gave up on DnD and moved onto historical gaming was put out to grass, although he occasionally came out of retirement in odd games with my children.

The original 1973 little lead Elenderil

Apologies for the photo quality, its from my phone.  I found the original Elenderil figure when sorting through some boxes last weekend.  That pose looks a bit uncomfortable and the casting is a bit lumpen (Mrs E says its not unlike the real me - lumpen and uncomfortable!).  I have no idea who the maker was possibly a very early Citadel or GW fantasy figure.  Even by the standards of the day it's not a great figure but it has a certain sentimental value to me. 

In 1999 a new and exciting style of computer game burst onto the scene in the shape of a game called Everquest one of the early MMORPGs (that's a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game!).  It was (and for that matter still is) a kind of computer moderated DnD set in a world called Norrath.

I was very interested in the interaction between real people via their computer avatars and having seen a couple of friends playing took the plunge myself.  I needed a character and essentially resurrected my old pen and paper persona as an online avatar.  The nearest thing to a fighter-magic user in EQ was a Ranger so that's what he became.  I still play him in EQ from time to time 20 years later (on the Antonius Bayle server if anyone wants to pop by and say Hi, or blow raspberries!).

The electronic Elenderil

I don't recall whether I did any research on his name or just took a name from Tolkein and changed it a bit.  Some years ago I did check it against a data base of the components of elven names from Tolkein's world and found to my surprise that it actually worked within the naming rules of his Sindaran language.  It roughly translates as a light shining brightly in the darkness with darkness having the connotation of a bad or evil place.  As I have always played him as having a similar set of ethics to myself (with the exception of killing anyone or anything he doesn't like the morals of - I restrain myself there) he really sort of represent my alter-ego.

So there you have it my guilty pleasure or possible dirty little secret!  From time to time I pretend I'm a four hundred year old wood elf who likes walks in the woods and killing stuff.  Or possibly it's that I play on-line role playing games?