...on the next generation (lamentations of the older geek)

colinut

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Jun 5, 2014
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This is for the "veteran" builders and hardware enthusiasts. I mean those who first got excited at the prospect of Voodoo3 graphics' imminent release, then went out and bought 2 and had them working together for a blazingly fast Solitaire experience :)

I know I'm showing my age here. I was "uber geeky" back in those says, then left the "scene" and focused on software for work. But every now and then I come back here, forced to catch up with knowledge of latest hardware whenever I need to build a new machine for work (to keep test environments up to date and varied), or for a friend as I am still the "guy who knows about computers", an image I tried ever so hard to shake off in order to get friends off my back. Didn't happen btw.

But I am not writing this to pat my own back. After all I've just been long enough at it (on/off). I'm rather here to ask fellow "oldies" if they see the next generation of hardware "geeks" as enthusiastic and committed as we once were. Back in the day it seemed that everyone I worked or got in contact with knew more than enough on how to build and diagnose a machine. People were doing extreme custom builds squeezing the last drop of power from their silicon chips and getting super excited about the whole thing. Now two young lads I just employed weren't confident enough to install Windows. It's my bad, I should have asked in the interview but I just assumed they know the basic hardware building ropes and focused my questions on the big stuff (coding).

I entitled this lamentations and they very much are. I'm just slightly worried (with the way this is going) that when I'll be 70 I'll be pressed to find a young soul to come and fix my quantum machine and I'll have trouble finding anyone.