That's easy, you just got to have a good reply ready to go. Like in Monkey Island when facing the Sword Master 😀

Just sit down one day, and write down some good and humorous replies 😀

Tetrium wrote:

people knowing your retro computer hobby

It's never particularly come up in conversation, mostly because I doubt I know anyone who would be the least bit interested.

Its not just retro, its computing in general and I find it really strange.
Its considered ok for someone to come up to at work, ot a work friend just someone at work to ask if "can you have a look at my home laptop if I bring it in?"
Yet if I ask that same person who work ins in finance to go over my taxes I bet I would get a very different reaction.

When out socially I used to lie when asked what I do as I didn't want to seem like a geek or nerd, then I was ok with myself to be honest I started being more vague as quite of then the next sentence would be
"I have a problem with my computer..."
Although it was a good way to get to go meet up with girls again 😉 got a few dates by going round to fix a pc.

These days I just say I don't have the time for personal jobs, Never been asked for hardware but I wouldn't be lying if I said no. Just cause I'm not using it doesn't mean I don't want it!

chinny22 wrote:

Its not just retro, its computing in general and I find it really strange.
Its considered ok for someone to come up to at work, ot a work friend just someone at work to ask if "can you have a look at my home laptop if I bring it in?"
Yet if I ask that same person who work ins in finance to go over my taxes I bet I would get a very different reaction.

I have the same thing with my car. If I ask car people they are very reluctant to help/give advice, but everyone expects you to fix their computer or come with advice.

Well, none of my friends or acquaintances in "real life" share my retro computing hobby (only a few are interested in old game consoles) so I guess I'm safe in that sense.

However, I am very familiar with that thing about people that I barely know asking me to "fix" their computer because I work with computers (even though I'm a software engineer and not a PC technician, people just don't seem to care about that 😁).

Like Tetrium, I am also baffled by the absurd prices of common, run-of-the-mill hardware such as the Virges or Trios these days. 😠 I understand that rarities such as a V56K are expensive, but there is too much of the common stuff everywhere in comparison to the size of the retro market, right? 😐

The less you say the more you will hear. 😈

Ok that aside, I used to have people asked me to work on there computers a lot, but its not hard to get out of it.
Here's how.

1: Just say no!
2: Make there computer worse. Word will get around.
3: Tell them they need a new computer.
4: Tell them your only do it if they pay, even 5-10$ will piss most people off.

As for the cast of old hardware.

You need to stop using ebay and other sites like ebay to buy old parts if that's a problem.
True you can get a good deal on ebay, but the cost of rarer parts on ebay is nuts and we do this to are selves by paying those crazy prices. And 3dfx parts arnt that bad outside ebay, I bought recently voodoo 3's for 15$ and a voodoo4500 for 35$ and a voodoo5500 for 50$ on 3dfx fan sites.

As for s3 virge, yeah they seem to bee over priced on ebay, Why? Because people pay those prices.

WE can fix this by not asking to much for parts and if we all stop over paying the parts will be come cheaper.

This is why bragging or showing off too often causes trouble, sure it is fun but I learned to keep much of my collection private at least until a much later time 😉
Getting leaches wanting free hardware is never fun unless they want the crap you have been wanting to offload but failed to sell or trade.

People that I know do not care in the least. To them anything older is obsolete and thus a) trash or b) Goodwill / Salvation Army donation material.

Just ignore them.

$ of course is critical in life. Without $ there is no place to live and so on.

I used to have a lot of people in NL ask me to fix their PCs. I always told them: NLG 25 per hour. That cut of 95% of the requests right there.

Well, this is interesting.

I always accept requests to work on people's computers, simply because I enjoy it so much. I spent the entire summer this year working at a local computer shop doing pretty much nothing but scrubbing viruses, reinstalling OS's, and fixing registry errors, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

There's something very appealing to me about restoring a computer to not only a working, usable state, but making it nicer and more lightweight by using all the various tricks we know and love to make Windows less stupid (i.e. advanced defrag utils, better antivirus, registry fixes, disabling Aero (or Clown, for that matter) theme (BWAHAHAHA), using Chrome instead of IE, etc.)

Of course, if I had my druthers, every PC in Sector 001 would be running Linux. But that's just me.

I enjoy working on my relative's computers. They keep an eye out for parts I may be interested in and systems that are getting tossed because I do the work at cost/free for them. Every other year iv cleaned my sister's laptop out, so now that she's upgrading Im getting it for free 😀

At the moment I have only one curse... not finding stuff on my wish list 😲

Oh, and another one is... I got too much of stuff that's not on my wish list 🤣

Like a couple of other posts, I enjoy fixing computers. If they're not family, I do charge for it, though (very reasonably, mind you--about half what the shops around here charge), but I will also trade services if that comes up.

And like others, I don't usually talk about the retro aspect of my hobby. Even my fellow IT friends are not into retro at all and give me funny looks when I've mentioned it. This forum is the only place I discuss retro PCs.

Nowdays I only fix computers of close friends and relatives, everyone else in the past was just someone that needed free repairs and then forgot about it.
If someone brings me sutff he is automatically added to my good list and I fix their stuff if they want for free as it shows they actually remembered what I liked and went in the trouble of bringing me their old stuff. This is how it is supposed to work , help me - help you , I got tired of fixing stuff and then people avoiding to even speak to me until they needed something else fixed as well.

These days I'll only help out a few family members and friends and my neighbour (my naighbour helps me out in return, so it's 50/50 anyway, been like this for years now). Most of my friends I have taught how to fix it themselves along with general hints on how to prevent their systems from getting problems in the first place, so now I am barely needed 😀.
Some don't have a desktop anymore and I don't know how to fix mobiles and ipads and that kinda stuff 🤣
I do still give advice and some people I know will hardly ever ask for help anyway.

If someone I barely know asks me these days, I will ask some specifics but generally say that (along with not having the time anymore) I just can't be bothered fixing everyone's computers anymore. If you help people too much, word will spread and more people will start asking for your help. You will be a slave to your addiction to help people 🤣, don't do it! 🤣

And don't get me wrong, I've really enjoyed fixing everyone's computers for a time! One never knew what one was gonna find, some people were nice and some were world-class jerks. Sometimes I'd get some stuff thrown my way and I'd often get an interesting afternoon and most of all, I was doing what I found interesting and I learned stuff.
But things change and these days I found new stuff to learn and barely have any time to spend on too many projects (and fixing another malfunctioning printer really gets me annoyed, half the time it was printers that were having issues).

A friend of mine is really into cars, which really isn't something for me. He doesn't mind me talking about my retro stuff, but to us both it's more about the passion.

When he starts talking about some wild ideas of him, half the time I don't even know what he's talking about, but the passion is what's important to me and I can relate to that, as he can relate to mine. And some of the stuff is just impressive to look at, especially if one shows a 5.25in floppy to some 20 year old and then mention how much storage it has, those faces are priceless 😁

I hardly ever mention my collection at all and at times I kinda forget I even have all this stuff for months 🤣.

I haven't ebayed in a long time now. I do find something locally from time to time.

I barely have anything on my wishlist as I have almost everything I would want when it comes to computer parts.

vetz wrote:

chinny22 wrote:

Its not just retro, its computing in general and I find it really strange.
Its considered ok for someone to come up to at work, ot a work friend just someone at work to ask if "can you have a look at my home laptop if I bring it in?"
Yet if I ask that same person who work ins in finance to go over my taxes I bet I would get a very different reaction.

I have the same thing with my car. If I ask car people they are very reluctant to help/give advice, but everyone expects you to fix their computer or come with advice.

Some people will only accept help, but never give any help. Those people aren't worth helping imo, they only want to take take take

chinny22 wrote:

Its not just retro, its computing in general and I find it really strange. Its considered ok for someone to come up to at work, […]
Show full quote

Its not just retro, its computing in general and I find it really strange.
Its considered ok for someone to come up to at work, ot a work friend just someone at work to ask if "can you have a look at my home laptop if I bring it in?"
Yet if I ask that same person who work ins in finance to go over my taxes I bet I would get a very different reaction.

When out socially I used to lie when asked what I do as I didn't want to seem like a geek or nerd, then I was ok with myself to be honest I started being more vague as quite of then the next sentence would be
"I have a problem with my computer..."
Although it was a good way to get to go meet up with girls again 😉 got a few dates by going round to fix a pc.

These days I just say I don't have the time for personal jobs, Never been asked for hardware but I wouldn't be lying if I said no. Just cause I'm not using it doesn't mean I don't want it!

.
I agree.

I don't think I ever lied about my interests though, but I sorta never mentioned it anyway unless I had some specific reason to do so.

TheMobRules wrote:

Well, none of my friends or acquaintances in "real life" share my retro computing hobby (only a few are interested in old game consoles) so I guess I'm safe in that sense.

However, I am very familiar with that thing about people that I barely know asking me to "fix" their computer because I work with computers (even though I'm a software engineer and not a PC technician, people just don't seem to care about that 😁).

Like Tetrium, I am also baffled by the absurd prices of common, run-of-the-mill hardware such as the Virges or Trios these days. 😠 I understand that rarities such as a V56K are expensive, but there is too much of the common stuff everywhere in comparison to the size of the retro market, right? 😐

🤣!

^This.

I do understand that it makes perfect sense that when something is old and gets rarer (more people wanting one, more of these cards dying and no new replacements coming in), people will start wanting it and prices will start going up, this all obviously makes perfect sense.
But I still think it's weird 🤣!

My Curse that I swear exists although I don't believe in curses really, comes in the form that whenever I decide to spend time doing retro stuff, something major happens in my life that prevents me from spending any more time on retro things. 🙁 Since each issue is personal I don't want to go into details, but they are life changing problems each time.

But to hell with curses, I'll keep doing the Retro things I love till the day I die!!!

keenmaster486 wrote:

Well, this is interesting. […]
Show full quote

Well, this is interesting.

I always accept requests to work on people's computers, simply because I enjoy it so much. I spent the entire summer this year working at a local computer shop doing pretty much nothing but scrubbing viruses, reinstalling OS's, and fixing registry errors, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

There's something very appealing to me about restoring a computer to not only a working, usable state, but making it nicer and more lightweight by using all the various tricks we know and love to make Windows less stupid (i.e. advanced defrag utils, better antivirus, registry fixes, disabling Aero (or Clown, for that matter) theme (BWAHAHAHA), using Chrome instead of IE, etc.)

Of course, if I had my druthers, every PC in Sector 001 would be running Linux. But that's just me.

This eventually wears off and stay in too long you will only end up hating the work, I really really do not like working with junky laptops especially those that are entirely plastic. Small form factor machines especially the "roach motels" are some of the very worst machines. As for working on machines from smokers homes one should get hazard pay and man do they Stink!

ZanQuance wrote:

My Curse that I swear exists although I don't believe in curses really, comes in the form that whenever I decide to spend time doing retro stuff, something major happens in my life that prevents me from spending any more time on retro things. 🙁 Since each issue is personal I don't want to go into details, but they are life changing problems each time.

But to hell with curses, I'll keep doing the Retro things I love till the day I die!!!

Nah mate that's just called life! This whole being an adult thing was a big trick I tell you! 😜

nforce4max wrote:

keenmaster486 wrote:

Well, this is interesting.<br abp="621"><br abp="622">I always accept requests to work on people's computers, simply because I enjoy it so much. I spent the entire summer this year working at a local computer shop doing pretty much nothing but scrubbing viruses, reinstalling OS's, and fixing registry errors, and I enjoyed every minute of it.<br abp="623"><br abp="624">There's something very appealing to me about restoring a computer to not only a working, usable state, but making it nicer and more lightweight by using all the various tricks we know and love to make Windows less stupid (i.e. advanced defrag utils, better antivirus, registry fixes, disabling Aero (or Clown, for that matter) theme (BWAHAHAHA), using Chrome instead of IE, etc.)<br abp="625"><br abp="626">Of course, if I had my druthers, every PC in Sector 001 would be running Linux. But that's just me.

<br abp="627"><br abp="628">This eventually wears off and stay in too long you will only end up hating the work, I really really do not like working with junky laptops especially those that are entirely plastic. Small form factor machines especially the "roach motels" are some of the very worst machines. As for working on machines from smokers homes one should get hazard pay and man do they Stink!

I lasted from High school and the first few years of having a full time IT job and don't discourage it at all, It was a good way to get parts, experience, bit of extra money or make new friends, just as long as YOU are enjoying doing the work.
Some people forget you are doing them a favour and if you cant get round to it for the next few weeks that's their problem not yours.

I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like older folks (retirement age) are more likely to respect your time and efforts and want to pay you for your work. It can be very rewarding to help retired people because they tend to be better about showing appreciation for your efforts. They're also fun to talk with...they often have great stories with a lot of history behind them.

Tetrium wrote:

And some of the stuff is just impressive to look at, especially if one shows a 5.25in floppy to some 20 year old and then mention how much storage it has, those faces are priceless 😁

It's even funnier when you then point out that back in those times you could have a complete operating system, full office suite and image processing software (and much more) taking up less than 100 Mb of hard disk space. The beautifully confused reactions... 😲

And of course when "insert modern company here" claims to have invented something so incredibly new and exciting, they can't believe no one thought of it before, and you point out that a computer that by all current standards was incredibly primitive could do it back in 198x 🤣