Techno Rubble - In the Beginning

18. August 2008 by Wizard.

Back in the early 1990’s … a programmer whom I occasionally worked with used to hire a stall at various computer markets and sell compilations of Shareware on CD ROMs. I had a growing collection of out-dated hard drives, graphics cards and miscellaneous PC parts, so I joined him one day to see if I could sell them. 

Needing some simple but effective signage, I came up with the idea of calling my collection of computer related dregs “Techno-Rubble“. Since anything that didn’t get sold that day was likely to end up as landfill, this was in fact a chillingly accurate and succinct term.  

Even today, I still experience a sense of frustration when I throw out a perfectly functional piece of equipment for no other reason than it is too slow to be usefully productive. The only up side is, that at least now some of our Techno-Rubble will be recycled. 

Having built and repaired more PCs than I care to remember, going right back to the days of the original 8086 PC, there are several points that have become rather obvious over time. 

The first is that the old saying “they don’t make them like they used to” is quite literally true when applied to PCs. The second is that the most common causes of critical PC failure are heat related. And thirdly, no matter how much you have in the way of resources (CPU speed, hard drive space, RAM) you will eventually need more. It’s purely a question of when. 

To be realistic, computers have always failed over time for various reasons. So, what has changed? The answer is surprisingly simple … our attitudes! 

The expectation of devices being “built to last” has been supplanted by “the need for speed”. Consumer technology no longer wears the burden of having to last, because we now expect to be upgrading at least every two to three years (or sooner). This simple reality is reflected in the nominal one-year warranty on the majority of consumer products.

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