Computers are Stupid (So I keep lots of backups)

I don't trust computers. They stop working at the worst times. And it is far too complicated to figure out what went wrong.

Many, many years ago when we were young and silly and having way too much fun in our little apartment in Everett, Cheryl and I had a personal computer desktop (not a laptop because nobody had laptops back in those days unless they were ridiculously rich) which ran MS-DOS 5.0 -- the latest and greatest Disk Operating System in the whole wide world! -- and we had a multi-app program we used for documents and databases and spreadsheets -- I can't recall what it was called off-hand -- and this desktop boasted a super-amazing 40 megabyte hard drive with lots and lots of very important data on it.

And then the hard drive died.

And I wasn't yet into the habit of making backups.

Ever since then, besides becoming a fanatic about making backups, I've become increasingly annoyed at the relative delicacy of electronic data equipment. "Frailty, they name is Computer" -- which is from Shakespeare or someone, I believe. And so true!

Over the years, I've gone through at least twenty desktop computers and four or five laptops (and still have most of the motherboards to prove it), along with various small computing devices (cell phones, electronic readers, etc.) which have provided ample evidence that none of them are to be trusted.

And if it isn't the hardware that fails, it's the software that goes bad.

Back in the early days of CP/M and DOS (70s - 80s), it was relatively easy to fix an issue, because the software wasn't that complicated. Then they introduced Windows 3.0 (1990 - onward!) and things got a bit more complicated. And from that point it's been nothing but trouble.

I'm not even going to discuss Apple. That's an entirely different topic.

==

Dell Latitude - with Attitude!

I'd been having trouble with my "go-to" laptop, the Dell Latitude I got from the Re-PC store a few years ago. It has all the bells and whistles I need, and other than running a bit hot sometimes, it's been very reliable.

I also have a docking station for it, which has allowed me to expand its capabilities quite a bit, with extra USB hubs and video connectors.

But the other day when I turned it on, it refused to boot up. I panicked, thinking something was wrong with the computer. Then, on a whim, I unplugged it from the docking station -- and it worked just fine.

Docking Station

So now I was worried about the docking station, thinking there was something seriously wrong with it, until a few hours later when I realized that the laptop battery was not being charged (I'd switched the power adapter from the docking station directly to the laptop). Then it became obvious that it was the power adapter and not the docking station that was at fault.

Luckily, I have a good supply of those around, so I swapped a different one in, and the laptop worked fine for awhile.

Until the next day when I booted it up again.

Boot Process Lock-Up

This time, it hung up during the boot process. I didn't panic ... yet. It's done this before.

But after about 45 minutes with still no boot completion, I cycled power on it.

And now it was able to get to the Log In prompt. So I entered my login information and hit the Enter key and ...

Login Process Lock-Up

It sat there spinning for another 45 minutes.

Now what?

Being the impetuous geek engineer, I did the obvious thing - type Control-Alt-Delete to bring up the login menu again. 

And selected 'Task Manager'. Which brought up the Task Manager so that I could see what was keeping the computer from booting up.

Turns out It was the stupid Microsoft Update application, the one that tries to keep your Windows 11 operating system up-to-date with the latest and greatest security fixes and application updates.

It was taking far too long for my tastes. And when I checked further into it, instead of being a simple minor update, it was updating a TON of files. And somewhere along the line, it was having trouble getting rid of the OLD files.

Oddly enough, rebooting the machine (not powering down this time) did the trick. Somehow it kicked the machine hard enough that it was able to delete the old files and install the new ones, and then finally boot up so that I could get some work/play done.

Only took a couple hours.

Stupid computer.

**

This isn't a particularly novel experience. After working in the computer engineering industry for over 35 years, it's par for the course. But it reminded me that, for the most part, I've never had a computer that didn't have issues either with the hardware, the software, or both.

Right now I have eight on or near my work desk (not counting my actual work laptop), and each one has a peculiar limitation or quirk or failure point which keep its from being a perfectly functional machine. Some examples:

• Cheryl's ancient laptop - only one core CPU, runs very slow, plus none of the USB ports on the right-hand side work.
• Cheryl's newer laptop - the power port connector broke inside so I fixed it, but now some of the USB ports don't work. And the plastic case is just falling apart.
• An old laptop from Mom which will not boot up in Windows but runs OK in Linux -- except that the audio hardware is screwed up so it only works intermittently.
• An old Mac laptop from Mom which runs very slow even though I stuffed it with more memory. It's about as fast as it's going to get, which is slow.
• Two tiny sub-laptops which I got from church because they were just not powerful enough to keep up with the applications used in the Children's Ministry. They are incredibly slow.
• The old Vista desktop which we got way back in 2007. It was awesome back then, with two CPU cores, but over time became very, very slow. Runs fine as a Linux server, and is my testbed for random desktop hardware like full-size hard drives, PCI cards, etc.
• An old desktop I got from my father-in-law which still runs so I'm converting into a Linux server.
• An even older desktop which I use just for fun. Got rid of the case a long time ago because it was more fun to build my own out of wood. I was originally using it to test old power supplies, but those were discarded in a purge a couple years ago, so now its just waiting patiently on the shelf.

This reminds me of my cars. They're all old, each with quirks and foibles, but they work good enough for us. And these days, who can afford a new car anyway?

And I love working on cars.