The hardware explosion.

[kyrielle]

Someone get these computers off of my desk.

No, I'm serious. I'm typing on my new laptop. It can stay. My desktop can stay. This is ridiculous. I have three laptops, plus my desktop (which is under the desk, but its monitor is on the desk), plus a backup monitor for the laptop with the flaky screen (which is now too far away to reach the monitor, but the screen is presently behaving).

Aie.

It's 10:10. I can't post this as I type it (two network connections, four computers, this one doesn't got one just now). Why do I have so many computers?

1) My laptop. Duh. Main work machine, email, compiling, etc. Easy one.
2) My old laptop. Being deinstalled, cleaned up, virus scanned, etc.
3) New rotations laptop. HOPEFULLY being set up for, well, rotation with the pager (which will let me ship #2 back to have its mangy self fixed).
4) Desktop. Secondary work machine for testing. Recently had motherboard upgrade and OS reinstall, but I have it back to a useful state. Pity I'm too busy with answering people's questions and sorting out #2 and #3 to use it, but that should ease by next week.

By next week, I might be back to two machines. (The rotation laptop's home is in the lab, when not in use by someone on rotation; but if I had to hike back and forth between the lab to get setup tasks done, this would take even longer.)

By the way: four computers means you're either trying to do more at once than you are capable of, or waiting on more things than you care to think about at once.

Comments

[camwyn]

Gosh, now I don't feel so bad about having a spare motherboard, k6-2 350 processor, and 128 mb SDRAM lying around on my desk. Thanks!

[rauros.livejournal.com]

For the longest time I had:

1. Current computer, which started out as a short term development system for a PC-based game, but ended up taking over for...
2. Old computer, usually under the table, along with monitor, keyboard, etc. Still needed once a month or so, mostly for eeprom programming card and software.
3. Current platform for abovementioned game, next to my main computer, and it's ~27" or so monitor (which I was quite reluctant to move because that thing is HEAVY.)
4. Development system for a video game system, with several different circuit boards and it's own monitor, under a different table.
5. A ten way eeprom programmer, with a liberal supply of spare eeproms, on top of said table.
6. A test fixture for whatever project I was working on.
7. One or two alternate test fixtures for other projects that were ongoing, in the adjacent office, which became vacant and has been annexed. ;^)

I finally moved the one with the really big monitor into the spare office, and haven't used most of the test fixtures in a while; some have moved. I've got an emulator and parts on a windowsill, a small test board on a previously unoccupied corner of my desk, and a monitor with a touchscreen controller where the PC for the really big monitor is.

The spare office also has a four way hard drive copier and a test server for one of the projects.

In short, I feel your pain ;^)

[kyrielle]

...yours is scarier than mine. By a considerable amount. WOW is that a lot of stuff.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

For a summer I lived in an appartment that had 2 computers/terminals for each person actually living there. (More or less because each of the bedrooms had at least one computer and then we needed roomate+1 computers/terminals for the livingroom.) Sooo.. it could be worse. =)