[rescue] storing old Suns and parts

[Mouse]

>> Just an observation from personal experience...reasonable spouses
>> can become unreasonable.  My PDP 8/E in a full size rack has
>> followed me from grad school (in my apt) and joined along the way by
>> a collection of PDP 11/34s, 73's and assortment of uVax'es (4000/300
>> and high performance graphics stations) into our house with a good
>> size basement and garage.  As we have an eye to downsizing at this
>> point in life, that question that has become the forcing function is
>> 'what are you going to do with all those machines???

Which spouse in that scenario is the one you are (implicitly) calling
unreasonable?

>    That's what divorce attorneys are for.

Well, if computers are more important to you than people.

And that is not a criticism.  I'm not saying there is a should-be
either way.  For me, time was, computers _were_ more important than
people.  Now, I'm unsure (and tending towards "not"), and it's a major
source of uncertainty for me these days.

>> (she is, btw an advanced degree CS major).

Theoreticians don't necessarily understand the practice.  And someone
who does not share an emotional attachment is likely to not understand
it regardless, even if they work with the same things differently.

>> and the corollary 'You don't turn them on anymore, or if you do, it
>> becomes more of fixing them rather than doing anything with them'.

Perhaps explaining that fixing them _is_ doing something with them, to
you?  To most people, computers are just tools.  To us, they are more.
Not everyone understands that, just as not everyone understands any
other emotional hobby attachment, whether bicycling, or model trains,
or Magic: The Gathering, or gardening, or bowling, or whatever.

I use computers as tools.  But I also use computers as hobby objects,
and recognizing the difference, and when I'm doing the one and when the
other (and when both) has improved my life.  Getting my partner to
recognize the hobby-object value and treat it as such has significantly
helped our relationship.

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