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, […]
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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!
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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 🤣!