Both.

Now I can't damn solder, but I always love working with hardware, be it assembling my own PC or setting up my stereo system. Collecting hardware is also a nice thing to do.

Software has its own appeal, but when it goes to software, I mostly focus on games.

Both.

I like to tinker with both hard and software.

When it comes to software I love to tweak my OS and programs to run smoother faster and use less resources. My old laptop that I used as a main rig for years had a custom win xp install without a lot of Microsoft bloat using mainly open source programs to replace the standard shit and tons and TONS of tweaks for pretty much anything!
Sadly my current laptop is not as tweakeble 😒 and I'm still not comfortable to some changes in win7 (new start menu is a pain and so is the explorer) even after 2 years of use.

I do like to work with hardware but with laptops the only thing you do is remove dust every now and then. The hardware I do work with tends to be old (P4 to XT) and I do like the challenge of working with the pre P1 stuff as opposed to new computers that are so easy to put together. I also like troubleshooting to see what prevents a machine from working and cable management to improve cooling and to make working easier.

I'm also interested into programming and electronics but I lack both time and money to pursue those interests.

I'm an old hardware head. I built my first computer in 1978 using AMD's version of Intel's 8080A. I still have it. I programmed it with a home made keypad and LED set up in machine language. I still design circuitry for a living, but as for software, I never went past using assembly language. I still use it today for my microcontroller based designs. I have a collection of PC's from the 8088 to my AMD Phenom machine I'm using to type this. My girlfriend just glazes over if I start to talk about it 😀

Software is what I suck less at (just slightly).

Software...I find it more fun, challenging and rewarding; I CAN deal with hardware if I have to, but some times it just annoys me (or pains me: moving around all that metal with a bad back is...not fun), where software can just compel me to find a solution if something doesn't work the way I intend it to (e.g: that number's NOT supposed to be there...let's debug this thing).
I used to like hardware a bit more years ago, mind you...ever since we had to stop dealing with IRQs, addresses and such...it just became a tad boring.

I'd say that I'm slightly more of a hardware person, due to the fact that computer hardware is more "tangible" to me than software, and I generally have an easier time figuring out hardware problems rather than software problems.

Whenever I try solving software problems, I usually spend a lot of time just googling whatever random error messages come up. 🤣

IMO, hardware only exists to run software. But software is always better on original hardware, so skills with both are necessary. But I'd still rather have a working computer that takes some some software expertise to get working than a broken computer that requires hardware repair. If software is the problem, it's almost certain you can get it working. If hardware is the problem, who knows?

Hatta wrote:

IMO, hardware only exists to run software. But software is always better on original hardware, so skills with both are necessary. But I'd still rather have a working computer that takes some some software expertise to get working than a broken computer that requires hardware repair. If software is the problem, it's almost certain you can get it working. If hardware is the problem, who knows?

It's fun to diagnose defective hardware though 😁
But it isn't as much fun if the owner of the defective hardware is you 😢

🤣, yeah,

me likie likie

dealing with IRQs, addresses and such...

dang am i the only who can solder? I'm getting better every project and kind of enjoy it. just did a laptop mobo connector with thread sized solder. 🤣