Tech clutter is a disease of the computer geek

PROFESSIONAL PSYCHOTHERAPIST Cindy Glovinsky wrote a book entitled "Making Peace with the Things in Your Life: why your posessions keep overwhelming you and what to do about it".

While I wonder if perhaps she needs to read a book on writing succint titles, she's got a point when she asks "Do inanimate objects, the hallmarks of busy modern life, conspire to fill up every inch of your space, no matter how hard you try to get rid of some of them and organize the rest? Do you feel frustrated, thwarted, and powerless in the face of this ever-renewing mountain of stuff?".

Oh yes I do! Tech clutter is a problem of every computer geek. Everyone who owns more than one PDA or cell phone, raise your hand.

How much tech waste are you hoarding?.
Here's my collection: Tandys, 8bit Commodores, 16bit Amigas, even a 4-CPU Pentium Pro 200 Mhz
server in the back...

I'm sure that the countless hours staring close to the computer screen -back then not a LCD panel but the fountain of electromagnetic radiation known as "CRT TV" or in the best of cases a 14-inch CRT monitor- must have affected the brains not only of myself but of a generation. Remember this was before the Swedish standards on low electromagnetic emissions kicked in. And perhaps it's for this reason that I can't let go of any of them.

Radio Shack Colour Computer (CoCo), 5 1/4" inch floppy drive and tape game

Whoever experimented his first 300bps dial-up modem connection back in the late 70s or mid-80s, or the first video titling work done at home with a Commodore Amiga. Or the hours spend soldering a second "SID" chip in a Commodore 128D to get STEREO SOUND, something that only became widespread on PCs ten years later... knows what I'm talking about. And don't even get me started on the real video games, the ones before the 3D madness with poor playability became the "standard".

Tandy Colour Computer II (aka CoCo 2), C-64, "Advanced OCP Art Studio"
for the C64/128 - Made in Blighty

Back to the topic, I think it's time someone writes a book about tech clutter, specifically tailored to computer geeks. Because I can't let go of any of this "junk". While I decide what to keep and what to throw out -which will surely end up in a landfill and contaminating the water underground over time-, I wonder if there would be any interest by new generations in seeing these old computers in action. --DON'T ANSWER!. I'm afraid that the sad truth is that probably they don't. [You're wrong: We had a "spring clean" here. Suddenly Tamlin is loving his first Amiga, which he had when he was around three. He's 19 now. -Ed].

Dual-CPU Commodore 128D, 6502 *and* Z-80 CPUs inside. Not "Dual core" but close ... :-)
And yes, it's a light pen. LCD screens killed the light pen era. Sad.

16-bit Amiga 1200 (32-bit M68030 inside @ 16Mhz)
A500 external SCSI hard disk (10 megabytes!) on top

Author Harriet Schetcher says in her book aptly titled "Let go of clutter" that our brains might be "programmed to hoard". Others call it "compulsive hoarding" and according to Ph.D. researchers, it's a disease suffered by "several million Americans". I personally think every computer geek has this condition in one degree or another.

Exclusive picture: C64 with LCD screen prototype ;-)

But this is not a cry for help. I know of one easy solution to tech-clutter: marriage. I've seen many of my geek friends lose their entire collection of tech toys quickly after their significant others of the female kind took the steering wheel of their common homes. But that solution often comes with its own set of problems attached, as I'm sure many of my married colleagues can attest. In the meantime, have you done your spring cleaning yet? µ