Re: Seen in the wild
Back in the day when I was starting to assemble computers for myself, a case seemed frivolous and costly. I managed to trade for a 286 board along with a 320 Meg HD. The advantage of having no case was that the hard drive had a bearing issue and needed encouragement to get going, so I had a screwdriver sitting on my desk next to things for when the computer got shutdown and the hard drive needed to be spun up (there was a slot on the end of the spindle.....). Was a budding young hobbyist at that point, but it didn't take long to realize I needed to upgrade that drive as soon as could be afforded. I got a lot of miles out of that drive (probably a year or more) and passed along to someone else who used for another 5 or 6 months before it finally gave up the ghost.
Then when I was in college, I came very close to losing my life's work when my IBM Deathstar (Deskstar) bit the dust with the click-click-click on boot after my semester ended before exams.... Luckily all projects had been turned in at that point and it was just a matter of downloading class notes again to cram for exams... Ended the semester on a high point academically, but if that drive had died a day or more sooner than that, I would have been screwed. We were told not having a backup was no excuse and they meant it!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
