h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know, thats why I got Alpha Centauri.

I meant to buy that one but the computer we had ran too slowly, and I can't put games on the uni ones.

I did that the other day. I bought Planescape:Torment but It doesn't run on my computer. It would run on my Dads but it has been seriously playing up recently, it currently doesn't even load windows.

That's annoying.

TA runs slowly on my computer and kept juddering on the bigger maps. I was running a few games on the minimum specs for processor power.

My computer is only a P166. So it used to be OK but now its a bit slow. As soon as I get THE JOB I'll get a new computer.

I had to get the patch for Grim to make my machine run slower as I couldn't get out of the elevator on the internal floor in order to progress in the game. That was a while ago though. my machine is playingup and running slowe and fast and fast and slow these days. Really ought to do a complete reinstall, but I have a lot saved atm.

We had a P-90 (Old old old old) which had an overdrive chip to run at about 166 so I know what you mean about feeling a bit slow nowadays. Even the Uni library runs PII 400s

my Dads is a PII 333. But I'll get a top of the range one when I can. It might last 2 years before I have to upgrade it.

Ours has lasted since about summer 1993 I think with one chip upgrade and a couple of RAM and Hard-disk changes

I've got a PII 350, custom built. I bought it with my summer job money last year. As I am now working on crays t3es, I don't think I will be upgrading for a while. Can't afford it anyway.

I've only had one harddisk go on me. And that was in my old P90, see I had one of them too.

I'm jealous

I've worked with a 16 processor Origin for about 9 months.

Now I see why you did science subject degrees.

I'm unlikely to get anywhere near a supercomputer for years (if ever)

Mind you, you also wont get the mind destroying experience of crashing on either.

There is that

That has to be experienced to be believed, wrecking a £500,000 computer is a major source of stress.

Yowch! I hope it didn't come out of your salary

No I had just crashed it, they just had to hit the reset button (or whatever) to get it working again.

Phew.

Heart in the mouth time for a moment though, I guess.