Does Your Wife/Girlfriend Approve Of Your Collection?

[TanruNomad]

Damn, that was an awesome story and I'm so happy for you two. It proves that not all women are appalled by this stuff as long as you manage their expectations from the get-go. I constantly have stuff on the dining table (since I have no garage) and it serves as my repair station
Currently have an amiga 500 and a mac classic II on it so we ate dinner on the living room coffee table.

 

[nige the hippy]

Yep, my mrs is pretty cool about my loft & garage full, just as long as it doesn't invade the living rooms (although the Burroughs adding machine in the dining room is still accepted). I just hope she doesn't apply the "What's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander" rule though. She's just as much a nerd as me, but likes vintage busses - EEK

 

[olePigeon]

Normally you wouldn't see a proportional font used on office memos until decades later, due to the large expense of a typewriter with that feature, but it does make sense that IBM itself would give their top management's secretaries the best equipment to use. Likely the memo was typed on an IBM Executive Model A typewriter, which was in production from 1948 to 1954.

Oooo that bugs me so much about the Birthers, aside from the ridiculous notion of the short form & Republican governor of Hawai'i not being good enough. Idiots were complaining that typewriters couldn't do variable spacing in the 1960s. IBM had developed the technology in the 1940s! Full 20 years before Obama was even born. We put people on the freakin' moon in the 1960s! Of course, those same people probably think that was fake, too.

One of the shows I hate with a passion on the History channel is the one where they bring in "experts" who attempt to explain why the pyramids, Colossus, or some other ancient architectural wonder could only have been built by aliens because the people were too stupid to have constructed something so incredible. Except now we have a group of people claiming we were too stupid to figure out kerning on electric typewriters not 60 years ago.

 

[Luzur]

my ex managed to make me sell off alot of big box PC games ive had from my youth, so we could get cash for a trip.

well the trip never happened, i lost alot of personal items and she bought clothes/handbags for the cash (i still feel barely held back fury when i think about it, she never sold a single thing that was hers, just my stuff had to go..)

so i made a promise to myself, the next time i install GF 1.0, i will make it clear that she will not be able to change me or my interests.

 

[PeterNY]

my ex managed to make me sell off alot of big box PC games ive had from my youth, so we could get cash for a trip.

well the trip never happened, i lost alot of personal items and she bought clothes/handbags for the cash (i still feel barely held back fury when i think about it, she never sold a single thing that was hers, just my stuff had to go..)

Ouch!

 

[glitch]

My girlfriend approves of my hobby, and is mildly interested (moreso in the new things I build, or projects like the AM transmitter I built for listening to mp3s through her 1934 RCA console or Nixie clock), but mostly just acknowledges that it's something I like to do. I don't spend lots of money on it, and very often I end up selling things I've acquired to buy things that benefit both of us, like parting with my last Rev 0 KIM-1 so that we could purchase supplies for working on our fix'r up'r house. Even then, she insisted I keep part of the profit for something I wanted (in that case, the train ticket + admission ticket for The Next HOPE).

Like Saundby said, you have to go into a relationship being who you are, and making who you are known. I don't expect anyone to be completely interested in my hobbies, but it wouldn't be right to ask me to give up something I enjoy as long as it's not hurting the relationship. It's a two-way street with us, though; for example, I'm not all that interested in swing dancing, while my girlfriend really loves it. While I may not want to go to events with her, I fully encourage her to go with friends when she wants to!

That said, she's probably more tolerant of old computers than most...she's going with me to VCF (her decision, mostly for the old games) and recently asked if I could connect an old green-screen serial terminal to her Linux workstation for writing/editing code with less distraction/eye strain. I don't think many women actually /want/ a serial-attached dumb terminal sitting on the desk in the bedroom!

 

[barythrin]

Right but awesome that she does vintage gaming and is a coder... and of course the fact she has a vintage RCA gear makes her awesome also. I might have to do that to get my wife a vintage radio since she liked those at the last ham expo, at least then she would start thinking about other vintage items and have an attachment to them. Unfortunately like a lot of folks these days she was never one who had much opportunity to save things from her past so she's pretty used to having minimal and functional current day items while the rest disappear or get destroyed by .... folks. I've had more of the blessing(?) to be able to have room for keepsakes and memories throughout my past.

 

[CommodoreZ]

My girlfriend doesn't mind my old computers & game systems. She has seen the best parts of the collection, and heard me tell all about what they are, what they are capable of, etc.

She even had a chance to see a few part of it in action, and enjoyed the games that they played-- long story short, my girlfriend likes my collection thus far. However, we are still in college, and she doesn't have to live with it in her space!

 

[bettablue]

I know this thread has been here for a little while, but I wanted to pass this on.

At first my wife would constantly ask what I was going to do with these old computers. However, once I explained my complete reasoning for wanting the IBM5150 system I finally bought and the Apple lle computer that was given to me, she completely understands and accepts my small collection. For me, to finally own one of the original IBM systems is a fulfilment of a long time dream. The 5150 was the very first "micro" computer I had done any real work with. It was the first computer system I used in college after the terminal - mainframe computers I had access to during my first year in college. It was the one computer I learned to program on. It goes even further than that too. I always felt that whenever I bought, or built a new computer, that I felt I was always somehow compromising in not getting a true IBM. There is a similar story behind the Apple ll system.

It was that explanation alone that made the difference.