I haven’t ever created a proper list of them, so I’m doing so now – that way, my inane rantings on Twitter and this blog with regards to my computers might make a bit more sense.

The computers are sorted in chronological order, present first.

Durandal (2010-)

Durandal

ThinkPad X100e bought with the proceeds of a summer job. Runs Windows 7 Home Premium, has an 11.6″ display with an AMD Turion Neo X2 CPU at 1.6GHz, 2G of RAM (bumped to 4GB in 2011 with the 2GB module left over from Hammond), a 160GB hard drive and a Radeon HD 3200 graphics chip. When you compare it to other machines at similar price points, it’s the bargain of the century.

Displaced both previous machines on arrival in October 2010.

Named for Durandal, the artificial intelligence in Marathon.

Bronowski (2009-2010)

Second-hand RM PC using a 2.4GHz P4, 512MiB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive. Ran Ubuntu until 2009, when another (12GB) hard drive was added (originally from the iMac) running Windows Server 2003. This failed in September 2010, leaving me stuck with a then-beta version of Ubuntu – fun times.

Had many, many quirks. There was no blanking plate where a Zip drive had been removed, for example, and the audio socket died in the last few weeks. Also featured no wireless adapter, forcing me to leave Welchman on all the time to use as a wireless bridge.

Eventually retired to the loft in October 2010.

Named for Jacob Bronowski, presenter of The Ascent of Man.

Welchman (2007-2010)

2000(?) iMac DV, with a 450MHz G3 processor and 384MiB of RAM. Initially had a 12GB hard drive, but this was replaced with the 6GB one from an (even older) Power Mac G3 when its OS X installation died, and I couldn’t find an install disk.

Found use as the world’s most power-hungry and noisy wireless dongle from 2009 onwards, when used to receive a (b) wireless signal and then share that via Mac OS X’s ICS over Ethernet to Bronowski (see above.) Retired (finally) in October 2010.

Named for Gordon Welchman, worker at Bletchley Park and teacher of MIT’s first computer course.

Hammond (2008)

Eee PC 701 4G. Ran more operating systems in its short lifetime than you could shake a stick at. Died after a drop around Christmas time 2008.

Named for Richard Hammond, diminutive mid-life crisis fool and television presenter.

Istari (?-2007)

No-brand PC with 670ish MHz Athlon CPU, 256MiB of RAM and Windows XP Professional (originally Windows 98.) This thing crawled towards its death in 2007, after its 320GB hard drive (bought from PC World three months previously) inexplicably gave up the ghost.