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

It's been a rough week. Monday was the first time Connie blacked out. She recovered and continued to have a normal day, but Tuesday morning she blacked out again. And Tuesday evening.

The experts weren't sure what was wrong. Some maintained she'd contracted a debilitating virus that was in its advanced stage, but could still be fought. Others believed her old organs were just giving out.

The fight for Connie's life continued through the week, but she was weakening. On Thursday, she displayed the dreaded "c000021a fatal system error 0xc0000005". On Friday, during an emergency OS transplant operation, she lost consciousness and departed to the Happy Upgrading Grounds, where everyone has a 64-bit dual core processor and a terabyte of hard drive.

Connie was not yet four years old when she died, but she had a long and fulfilled life.

We met toward the end of my senior year in high school; she was a paradoxical gift from my parents for relieving them of the burden of college tuition. We hit it off right away, though the only time she would have been considered "cutting edge" was around 5 years before she was born. Her nickname - "Dell Klunker" - reflected her low specs, large size, and corporate parent.

Despite not being brilliant, Connie served well. She acquired her name - which is short for "Contraband" - during her admirable service in enemy territory, when her presence was unwanted, and had it been discovered, she would have been expelled. Code Name Connie contributed more to that institution and its clients than any other unwanted presence.

Her hard drive seemed always filled to bursting, her RAM was perpetually low, she took her time opening the simplest programs, and there was always something bizarre about how she connected to wireless networks, but when a friend referred to her as my "life", they weren't exaggerating too much. She readily accommodated everything from a gig of music to a medical encyclopedia, desktop publishing software to a logic-puzzle generator, files of college work and files of not-so-college work...

Connie, I will miss you.

My condolences - we shall remember only the happy bits and know that we will see her again in the land where there are no zeros.

Dear Connie - rust in peace.

Leo

RIP Connie. And try not to grieve, Leo. Connie will be whirring happily away, keeping an eye on ou from that great cyber lab in the sky.

Oh dear. Reading your entry brought back memories of my first computer which I bought second hand from a friend circa 1985. Dragon 32 (for that was it's name) take a bow. Green screen & only good for BASIC although a couple of good pieces of software could be loaded - eventually - via a tape deck.

Connie, you have a friend in silicone heaven waiting for you.

RIP

uh oh ... I just spent two years convincing myself that our computer hath no soul .. that its just an arrangement of bits ..

there was a time when it would whisper back at me, saying 'speak for yourself, technospook' ..

hey Connie ... may your soul forever ... erm ... you know ... haunt me ..

H