I am a hard drive
I am a hard drive, st380021a, working inside a very ordinary desktop PC. People always think we’re high-tech white-collar workers, that our job is clean and respectable, and that we live quite glamorously. Maybe they get that illusion from seeing the nice clean white case. But actually, for small desktops like ours, the working environment is cramped, and the dust inside is enough to scare you to death. Every day is stagnant, and the work is mechanical and repetitive. Running word processing and watching movies is manageable enough, but if some huge software or game comes along, then I have to hustle up and down nonstop, and in the end the system often crashes anyway.
In our line of work, technology changes fast. About every two or three years there’s an upgrade and replacement cycle, so everyone feels pressure and lacks any sense of security. Every new board or card arrives full of energy and ambition, but after a few years pass, it becomes dejected and dispirited. Everybody in the case envies those who get to work in other machines. Especially the ones who go into laptops: they can travel all over on business trips, stay in five-star hotels, and don’t even have to do heavy work—just run Word, go online, chat a little, and that’s enough. As for me, I’d rather go work in one of those big servers, in a specially clean and bright machine room. Even if the work hours are longer, the benefits are good: 24-hour uninterrupted power, ups, plus arrays, hot-swap, several people doing one person’s job—how easy is that? And it’s prestigious too, only running critical applications. Unlike here, where we have to do all kinds of messy random things. But I know those hard drives are all impressive—either scsi, or scsi ii, fibre channel. For an ide drive like me, being able to make it into a workstation would already be pretty good.
I often think: back in the factory, if I had tried a little harder, could I have become a scsi too, or at least a laptop hard drive? But then I think maybe this is all fate. Still, I never complain. Memory complains all the time, though—complains about how complicated things are in the motherboard department, complains about how incompatible he is with the newly arrived no-name memory, and how the network card and TV card keep conflicting with each other.
I don’t have many friends. Memory counts as one. He’s very skinny while I’m very fat; he moves quickly while I’m always very slow. We came to this machine together. He’s always talking nonstop, while I just listen—I never talk. Memory has a very simple mind. Even though his English name is memory, he doesn’t keep any memory at all. No matter how huge the matter is, after one sleep he forgets it completely. I don’t speak, but I remember every detail. He says someone as melancholy as me isn’t suited for technical work and will end up with a split personality sooner or later. I just smile, because I believe in my own capacity.
Sometimes I like this job too. It’s simple. I don’t have to be stared at by the boss all day long like the monitor, nor do I have to deal with discs from outside like the CD-ROM drive. I just have to deal with files, nothing more than reading and writing. A very simple and quiet life.
Until one day. Even now I still remember the case lid gradually being lifted open, the shaft of light coming in through the gap growing wider and brighter. The air was filled with dancing particles. And then, I saw her. She was so slim and delicate, her silvery-white shell glinting. The workmanship all over her was so refined and smooth that I couldn’t help feeling ashamed of my own clumsiness. It wasn’t until the data cable connected us together that I came back to my senses. At the instant the power came on, I felt that the current was different from usual.
Later Memory laughed at me and said that whenever a newcomer arrives here, the current is always different—that it was the same the last time new memory came. I thought that was nonsense. I tried my best to stay calm and look professional, merely greeting her lightly and introducing the work environment. Gradually I learned that she, ibm-djsa220, was a laptop hard drive, working in the boss’s friend’s notebook. This time she had come to copy some files. We talked very happily. She told me lots of interesting stories from her travels, what it was like to fly on a plane, how riding in a car felt differently bumpy, showed me lots of beautiful photos and travel notes, and even told me the adventure story of one time she fell off a desk. And I showed off all kinds of stories and jokes downloaded from the internet. She laughed very happily. And I was surprised that I myself could go on talking without stopping.
One morning, after power-on, I saw the empty connector hanging off the data cable. She had stayed for 7 days in all. After that, I never saw her again. I regretted a little that we hadn’t exchanged email addresses, and that I hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. When I’m not busy, I think back alone to that shaft of sunlight shining into the case.
I don’t know what the word memory means. All I have are the many files she left behind. I arranged them neatly and put them in the place I pass most often. Every time my heads sweep over them, I feel a faint little sense of contentment. But I never expected the boss to ask me to delete those files. I wanted to argue that there was still plenty of space, but it was useless. So for the first time in my life, I disobeyed an order: I secretly modified the file allocation table, then hid them all in a secret place and marked that place as bad sectors. Nobody ever bothers bad sectors. And that place became my only secret. I often go there to look at them, though I never stay.
Day after day the days repeated themselves, reading and writing, reading and writing... I thought it would go on like that forever, until one day the boss wanted to install xp and found there wasn’t enough space. He discovered the problem and wanted to repair those bad sectors. I refused. Very soon, I received a new order: FORMAT.
I hesitated for a long time
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track 0 bad，disk unusable ！
I am a CPU (1)
I am a CPU, original INTEL, employed in an ordinary desktop computer. I’ve got a little brother, Memory, and I have to
rely on him to stay by my side every moment while I work. Actually, sometimes it’s not that I don’t have the data from some address or another,
it’s that I’m too lazy to look it up—
too troublesome. There’s also an older brother called BIOS. Every time that damned motherboard wakes me from my sleep, he reminds me what
I’m supposed to do, and because of that my work has basically never had any mistakes.
When I had just come off the production line, the brothers like me were all full of ambition and wanted to accomplish great things, but ever since I got to
this post, I haven’t seen any of them again. I wonder how they’re doing. The work environment here is simply awful
beyond words. Never mind the workspace—it’s also unbearably hot. When there are too many problems, I get dizzy and
can’t remember anything. I’ve got bad luck and still have to use an electric fan. I heard from Hard Drive brother that one of my buddies from the production line is already taking
cold-water baths, and I think that must feel very HAPPY.
Hard Drive brother doesn’t talk much; he seems very deep and serious. Memory says he’s not suited for technical work. Every time people say that,
he just smiles and doesn’t argue, very much the bearing of a great general. But I don’t agree. Technical work needs some steady people too.
Hard Drive brother is a little melancholy, a bit like a poet. He doesn’t like to talk much, but he knows a lot, and the stuff we work on
all ends up stored with him in the end, and he’s never lost anything.
CPU technology is updated very quickly now, almost every three months. Hard Drive brother
knows quite a bit about that. Though he doesn’t say much, the pressure makes me feel pretty depressed too.
Sometimes I forget Hard Drive’s name. “st380021a!” Little brother often reminds me like this. My little brother is
a chatterbox, babbling on every day without end. Usually when work isn’t busy, everyone chats with him a little too. After all, if we’re idle,
we’re idle. But my little brother is actually pretty good. I’m very forgetful, so whenever something comes up I ask him, and generally I can get
a satisfactory answer. If he doesn’t know, he’ll ask Hard Drive brother for me.
Big brother BIOS is groggy every day, but I know he’s a scheming fellow.
The others keep a little farther away from me, and generally I can’t be bothered to call on them for work. As for
the CD-ROM drive, graphics card, and so on, I just have little brother tell
them what to do and to stick to their posts and not slack off. Even though I’m their boss, there’s still a boss above
me too. Some things are beyond my control.
“What, Hard Drive is in love?” Hearing big brother BIOS say this news really gave me a shock. Searching deep in my thoughts,
it does seem like some IBM had come by once, but it was a long time ago and I can’t remember what she looked like.
Work has been very busy lately, and I hadn’t noticed that Hard Drive brother had been a bit off these past few days. Not only had he become slower,
sometimes he even shirked work, which had never happened before. I remember the company had rules against office romance—
how could Hard Drive brother make such a low-level mistake? Before I had time to think further, another problem came up. “Damn, problem after problem every day—boss, are
you trying to work me to death?”
Hard Drive brother’s low-level mistake finally led to serious consequences: he got low-level formatted.
When he was brought back, all of us were very sad. We knew he was no longer the brother we were familiar with.
He had been brainwashed. We slowly tried to enlighten him, constantly varying the current in an attempt to reawaken his vanished memories,
but it was useless. Hard Drive brother still couldn’t remember what had happened before. There was no helping it—just let nature take its course.
Memory kept chattering on and on there, telling Hard Drive about things that had happened in the past,
and Hard Drive carefully took note of it too, though who knows whether he could understand.
Until one day……
In order to recover the data, the boss called the laptop hard drive back. She still remembered Hard Drive brother, but it looked like he had already
lost all memory of her. The laptop hard drive looked very heartbroken. I could feel the pain in her heart,
because I too felt a slight trace of pain.
Things turned out just as I expected. Big brother BIOS really was a scheming man. He had kept some of Hard Drive’s things.
I know he sacrificed a lot, but for Hard Drive brother’s “revival,” I think it was worth it. “We’re friends,
after all.” Big brother BIOS’s words moved me deeply. “Damn, why didn’t you take it out earlier? We worked so hard trying
to restore his memory!” Memory was shouting again. You could tell he was emotional too.
I think it should be time for me to do something…
When the laptop hard drive was about to leave, I suddenly pretended to be sick and stopped working. Although the boss got a little angry,
in the end he still reconnected the laptop hard drive to the data cable.
Big brother BIOS was still as steady as ever. Hard Drive brother looked at me gratefully. Memory was introducing our brothers
to the newly arrived laptop hard drive.
“Hehe, I don’t really have anything to say either. We’re friends, after all.”
I am a stick of memory
I am a stick of memory. I work inside a desktop computer, but I can’t remember where I came from or what brand I am, because I’m forgetful. My boss is big brother CPU; he’s our chief. They all say he’s the brain of the computer, but as far as I can see his brain is really too small—even more forgetful than me. Every day he keeps asking me what is stored at such-and-such page, such-and-such address. I always tell him patiently, but before one second has passed he forgets again and asks once more. One time I said, big brother, aren’t you annoyed? Can’t you remember something useful? He said, “Memory brother, I have my difficulties too. Every day I’m doing problems nonstop till I’m dizzy and my vision blurs. It’s hard on me too.”
Actually, I don’t want to argue with him, because his brain is small and his thinking is simple too. Even though he’s my boss, every time he wakes up from sleep he can’t even remember what he’s supposed to do, and always hurriedly goes looking for BIOS brother: “Hey, buddy, what are we doing today again?” BIOS always impatiently repeats the work that has to be done every day, then goes back to sleep. After that it’s my turn and brother C’s turn to rush around blindly.
Among the brothers in the case, I like Hard Drive best. He has a big brain, remembers a lot, and remembers it firmly. He speaks very slowly, and rarely says the wrong thing. That shows he has depth, or at least that’s how I feel. CPU thinks so too, except he’s stupid and forgets who Hard Drive is every time. During power-on self-test he always asks: Hey, who’s that guy? “st380021a!” I always have to repeat it once.
Hard Drive really likes melancholy. I think someone as melancholy as him isn’t suited for technical work and will develop a split personality sooner or later, but he doesn’t believe it.
Actually, when I’m asleep I always forget almost everything, but I never forget my friends. There’s a place called CMOS—that’s the deepest part of my memory, where the names of the hard drive and CD-ROM drive are kept. Some things should be forgotten quickly, while some things should be remembered forever. In my dreams I always think this way.
BIOS is a very strange fellow. He’s always sleeping, but he’s always the first one to wake up. He has us do the self-test, boot up, and then he goes back to sleep. I know that if I remove the BIOS Shadow option in CMOS, he won’t get to sleep anymore, but seeing how groggy he always looks, I can’t bring myself to do it. He’s always cold and indifferent to people, and nobody really understands him. But this business with Hard Drive falling in love made me see him in a new light.
That was a long time ago. It seemed that a laptop hard drive once came to the case. She was very cute. To be honest, I liked her too. But now, other than remembering that she was cute, I’ve forgotten everything else. That’s where I’m luckier than Hard Drive: I forget everything that ought to be forgotten, but he remembers everything.
Ever since the laptop hard drive left, Hard Drive became very abnormal. Every time his heads passed over certain places, all of us could feel that the current was very abnormal.
“What’s wrong with Hard Drive?” I asked CPU.
“Who is Hard Drive?”
I knew there was no way to communicate with CPU, but BIOS said irritably: “That idiot fell in love.” I don’t know
what being in love means. Because I can’t keep memories, it seems like some people or things once left traces in my life, but I carelessly forgot all of them.
BIOS said to me: “For you, memory comes too easily, so you forget even faster. The memories that can be engraved forever in life all carry pain.” I didn’t understand, but I knew BIOS had once been flashed, and it hurt badly then, as if he were dying. My memory is shallow, unlike theirs… I envied them very much, because they had recollections, and we had—since then I too learned melancholy, because I wrote the two characters “melancholy” into CMOS.
Hard Drive got more and more wrong day by day. Finally one day, CPU said to me: what’s the next instruction again?
I took one look and jumped in fright: “FORMAT”
“What is it?” CPU was very excited, that brainless fool.
I still told him. I don’t know why I did that.
Hard Drive hesitated for a long time, and finally said only one sentence: track 0 bad, disk unusable。
The power went out. For a very, very long time, I counted the clock in the darkness.
A month later Hard Drive came back. Maybe his final struggle still hadn’t helped him escape his cruel fate—he had been low-level formatted. He remembered nothing, like an infant. We were all very sad, but perhaps that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. He wouldn’t have to suffer anymore afterward.
To recover the data, the laptop hard drive came back. “Hi，st,” she said, “don’t you recognize me?”
Hard Drive said nothing. It seemed the low-level format had hurt him badly.
After a while, he said, “Sorry, it seems we haven’t met before……”
The laptop hard drive looked very hurt. I could feel the tearful current she carried. “I never thought even you would be this forgetful.”
“Oh……”. Hard Drive didn’t answer.
I felt awful. The laptop hard drive still kept him in her heart, while he had forgotten everything, and that was exactly what he least wanted to forget. Was it luck, or pain? I couldn’t say. I only felt that fate plays tricks on people, with a faint sense of sorrow.
Just then a strange current came from BIOS. I sensed Hard Drive’s expression changing, from indifference to excitement, from excitement to grief, from grief to ecstasy……
“IBM, you came back……”
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Later BIOS told me that in fact he hadn’t been asleep. Ever since Hard Drive hid those files away, he had expected that things would end this way, so he secretly put some of those files into the backup.
“Luckily I’m DUAL BIOS. Even though I couldn’t hide much, it was enough to make him remember……”.
I thought it must have hurt terribly when BIOS saved those things. “Why did you do that?”
“Hehe, we’re friends after all.”
I am a CPU (2)
I am a CPU, working as a project manager in a desktop computer, though all the guys under me call me the boss.
I came from Intel. The reason I don’t dare say I graduated is that I failed CET-4 and didn’t get my degree certificate. I hate the CET-4 exam. Damn it, it’s purely a waste of the precious time of ambitious young people. Just because of that utterly idiotic reason, all my classmates became Pentium 4, while I only became Celeron.
Relying on my school’s name, I found a job very easily. I’ve been muddling along at this company for 4 years now. Though the benefits and待遇 aren’t much to brag about, the work is fairly easy. Every day I only need to work 8 hours, and even the occasional overtime is half play, half loafing around—very easy. It’s not like those classmates of mine. Some of them work in servers. Sure, it sounds like a big company with good treatment, but is that work fit for a human being? Not only do they have to run thousands of threads at the same time, they also work 24 hours nonstop. If they’re lucky, they only get to rest once during the New Year. I don’t envy them. My current life is enough for me.
Let me talk about the guys under me. I like Memory the best: tall and skinny, quick to react. Whenever I need something, the moment I open my mouth, he puts it right in my hand. And for many things, once I assign them to him, nothing goes wrong. “When you handle it, I’m at ease.” Hehe, I often pat him on the shoulder and say that. Still, I have to be a little careful—being too close to him doesn’t look good. The way that girl Graphics Card looks at us seems a little off to me. Don’t tell me she suspects we have some kind of tendency or something. Speaking of that girl, I get annoyed. Never mind that she dresses all flashy and gaudy—she also keeps scribbling all over the window nonstop. She doesn’t understand any technology at all. I told her to draw a circle, and she actually widened those big Zhao Wei eyes of hers and asked me how to draw one. Really all chest and no brains. I was so mad at the time I grabbed a transistor and wanted to smash her with it, but I let it go because she’s a woman. In the end I just fobbed her off with a Bresenham algorithm. As long as you can’t tell it’s square, that’s good enough.
Then there’s that big fat guy, Hard Drive. I can never remember his name, but it doesn’t matter. He hardly talks to me anyway—in fact, he doesn’t talk much to anybody. He spends all day acting deep. He works slowly too, and if you don’t find him something to do he just lies there sleeping, ignoring everyone. Lately he seems a little abnormal. I sent Memory to ask him for some data, and he kept hiding things and holding back. Is he doing private work on the side? I asked Memory what was going on, and Memory didn’t know either. Then gloomy BIOS said, “That idiot fell in love.” My heart gave a pang. Graphics Card chimed in from the side too: “Yeah, when a man falls in love he becomes like a melancholy poet. Look at him, sigh, it makes your heart ache so much.” “Enough, get back to work!” I roared, and the area around me immediately fell silent.
It reminded me of my own heartbreak—that failed first love. Where is she now? It’s been 4 years since we last had any contact. Is she doing well? I felt a little sympathy for Hard Drive. He was just like I had been back then, silently enduring the pain of longing. What he didn’t want people to see was probably his diary. Forget it, let him keep this bit of memory.
Memory secretly told me the whole story, and I tacitly allowed Hard Drive to keep spacing out all the time. But seeing him grow more and more depressed, to the point that it had already seriously affected work, I felt this matter had to be handled seriously. I had a private talk with Hard Drive in the office. “Since ancient times, those ruled by love are left only with regret—do you understand?” “…………” “I understand how you feel, but what use is it for you to go on like this? Forget it.” “…………”. Hard Drive remained silent from start to finish. The melancholy look in his eyes made me a little jealous. I hardened my heart and said, this is the company’s decision. Carry it out.
“FORMAT”.
He raised his head and looked at me firmly, and said one sentence: “track 0 bad, disk unusable”.
Do you know what the consequences of doing this will be? The company will fire you. At the very least you’ll be low-level formatted. You’d better take back what you just said.
…………
Still silence, just like my own stubbornness back then.
What to do? Fire him? Hard Drive’s eyes flashed in my mind again. I thought it over, then knocked on the boss’s
door.
A month later Hard Drive came back. He had been low-level formatted. He remembered nothing, like an infant.
After one incomparably quiet day, that laptop hard drive came again. I knew she would.
“Hi，st,” she said, “don’t you recognize me?”
Hard Drive said nothing. It seemed the low-level format had hurt him badly.
After a while, he said, “Sorry, it seems we haven’t met before……”.
The laptop hard drive looked very hurt. I could feel the tearful current she carried. “I never thought even you would be this forgetful.”
“Oh……”. Hard Drive didn’t answer.
I coughed and gave BIOS a look. He understood at once and sent out a strange current. Hard Drive’s expression began to change, from indifference to excitement, from excitement to grief, from grief to ecstasy……
“IBM, you came back……”.
“Mm, it’s me. Have you been well?”
“I, I’m fine. How long will you stay this time?”
“Hehe, this time I’m not leaving. The boss transferred me to this group.”
“Ah?! Really? That’s wonderful!”
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“Who’s that over there, sitting all by himself?”
“He’s our boss.”
“He kind of looks like a dog.”
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I am a hard drive, st380021a, working inside a very ordinary desktop PC. People always think we’re high-tech white-collar workers, that our job is clean and respectable, and that we live quite glamorously. Maybe they get that illusion from seeing the nice clean white case. But actually, for small desktops like ours, the working environment is cramped, and the dust inside is enough to scare you to death. Every day is stagnant, and the work is mechanical and repetitive. Running word processing and watching movies is manageable enough, but if some huge software or game comes along, then I have to hustle up and down nonstop, and in the end the system often crashes anyway.
In our line of work, technology changes fast. About every two or three years there’s an upgrade and replacement cycle, so everyone feels pressure and lacks any sense of security. Every new board or card arrives full of energy and ambition, but after a few years pass, it becomes dejected and dispirited. Everybody in the case envies those who get to work in other machines. Especially the ones who go into laptops: they can travel all over on business trips, stay in five-star hotels, and don’t even have to do heavy work—just run Word, go online, chat a little, and that’s enough. As for me, I’d rather go work in one of those big servers, in a specially clean and bright machine room. Even if the work hours are longer, the benefits are good: 24-hour uninterrupted power, ups, plus arrays, hot-swap, several people doing one person’s job—how easy is that? And it’s prestigious too, only running critical applications. Unlike here, where we have to do all kinds of messy random things. But I know those hard drives are all impressive—either scsi, or scsi ii, fibre channel. For an ide drive like me, being able to make it into a workstation would already be pretty good.
I often think: back in the factory, if I had tried a little harder, could I have become a scsi too, or at least a laptop hard drive? But then I think maybe this is all fate. Still, I never complain. Memory complains all the time, though—complains about how complicated things are in the motherboard department, complains about how incompatible he is with the newly arrived no-name memory, and how the network card and TV card keep conflicting with each other.
I don’t have many friends. Memory counts as one. He’s very skinny while I’m very fat; he moves quickly while I’m always very slow. We came to this machine together. He’s always talking nonstop, while I just listen—I never talk. Memory has a very simple mind. Even though his English name is memory, he doesn’t keep any memory at all. No matter how huge the matter is, after one sleep he forgets it completely. I don’t speak, but I remember every detail. He says someone as melancholy as me isn’t suited for technical work and will end up with a split personality sooner or later. I just smile, because I believe in my own capacity.
Sometimes I like this job too. It’s simple. I don’t have to be stared at by the boss all day long like the monitor, nor do I have to deal with discs from outside like the CD-ROM drive. I just have to deal with files, nothing more than reading and writing. A very simple and quiet life.
Until one day. Even now I still remember the case lid gradually being lifted open, the shaft of light coming in through the gap growing wider and brighter. The air was filled with dancing particles. And then, I saw her. She was so slim and delicate, her silvery-white shell glinting. The workmanship all over her was so refined and smooth that I couldn’t help feeling ashamed of my own clumsiness. It wasn’t until the data cable connected us together that I came back to my senses. At the instant the power came on, I felt that the current was different from usual.
Later Memory laughed at me and said that whenever a newcomer arrives here, the current is always different—that it was the same the last time new memory came. I thought that was nonsense. I tried my best to stay calm and look professional, merely greeting her lightly and introducing the work environment. Gradually I learned that she, ibm-djsa220, was a laptop hard drive, working in the boss’s friend’s notebook. This time she had come to copy some files. We talked very happily. She told me lots of interesting stories from her travels, what it was like to fly on a plane, how riding in a car felt differently bumpy, showed me lots of beautiful photos and travel notes, and even told me the adventure story of one time she fell off a desk. And I showed off all kinds of stories and jokes downloaded from the internet. She laughed very happily. And I was surprised that I myself could go on talking without stopping.
One morning, after power-on, I saw the empty connector hanging off the data cable. She had stayed for 7 days in all. After that, I never saw her again. I regretted a little that we hadn’t exchanged email addresses, and that I hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. When I’m not busy, I think back alone to that shaft of sunlight shining into the case.
I don’t know what the word memory means. All I have are the many files she left behind. I arranged them neatly and put them in the place I pass most often. Every time my heads sweep over them, I feel a faint little sense of contentment. But I never expected the boss to ask me to delete those files. I wanted to argue that there was still plenty of space, but it was useless. So for the first time in my life, I disobeyed an order: I secretly modified the file allocation table, then hid them all in a secret place and marked that place as bad sectors. Nobody ever bothers bad sectors. And that place became my only secret. I often go there to look at them, though I never stay.
Day after day the days repeated themselves, reading and writing, reading and writing... I thought it would go on like that forever, until one day the boss wanted to install xp and found there wasn’t enough space. He discovered the problem and wanted to repair those bad sectors. I refused. Very soon, I received a new order: FORMAT.
I hesitated for a long time
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track 0 bad，disk unusable ！
I am a CPU (1)
I am a CPU, original INTEL, employed in an ordinary desktop computer. I’ve got a little brother, Memory, and I have to
rely on him to stay by my side every moment while I work. Actually, sometimes it’s not that I don’t have the data from some address or another,
it’s that I’m too lazy to look it up—
too troublesome. There’s also an older brother called BIOS. Every time that damned motherboard wakes me from my sleep, he reminds me what
I’m supposed to do, and because of that my work has basically never had any mistakes.
When I had just come off the production line, the brothers like me were all full of ambition and wanted to accomplish great things, but ever since I got to
this post, I haven’t seen any of them again. I wonder how they’re doing. The work environment here is simply awful
beyond words. Never mind the workspace—it’s also unbearably hot. When there are too many problems, I get dizzy and
can’t remember anything. I’ve got bad luck and still have to use an electric fan. I heard from Hard Drive brother that one of my buddies from the production line is already taking
cold-water baths, and I think that must feel very HAPPY.
Hard Drive brother doesn’t talk much; he seems very deep and serious. Memory says he’s not suited for technical work. Every time people say that,
he just smiles and doesn’t argue, very much the bearing of a great general. But I don’t agree. Technical work needs some steady people too.
Hard Drive brother is a little melancholy, a bit like a poet. He doesn’t like to talk much, but he knows a lot, and the stuff we work on
all ends up stored with him in the end, and he’s never lost anything.
CPU technology is updated very quickly now, almost every three months. Hard Drive brother
knows quite a bit about that. Though he doesn’t say much, the pressure makes me feel pretty depressed too.
Sometimes I forget Hard Drive’s name. “st380021a!” Little brother often reminds me like this. My little brother is
a chatterbox, babbling on every day without end. Usually when work isn’t busy, everyone chats with him a little too. After all, if we’re idle,
we’re idle. But my little brother is actually pretty good. I’m very forgetful, so whenever something comes up I ask him, and generally I can get
a satisfactory answer. If he doesn’t know, he’ll ask Hard Drive brother for me.
Big brother BIOS is groggy every day, but I know he’s a scheming fellow.
The others keep a little farther away from me, and generally I can’t be bothered to call on them for work. As for
the CD-ROM drive, graphics card, and so on, I just have little brother tell
them what to do and to stick to their posts and not slack off. Even though I’m their boss, there’s still a boss above
me too. Some things are beyond my control.
“What, Hard Drive is in love?” Hearing big brother BIOS say this news really gave me a shock. Searching deep in my thoughts,
it does seem like some IBM had come by once, but it was a long time ago and I can’t remember what she looked like.
Work has been very busy lately, and I hadn’t noticed that Hard Drive brother had been a bit off these past few days. Not only had he become slower,
sometimes he even shirked work, which had never happened before. I remember the company had rules against office romance—
how could Hard Drive brother make such a low-level mistake? Before I had time to think further, another problem came up. “Damn, problem after problem every day—boss, are
you trying to work me to death?”
Hard Drive brother’s low-level mistake finally led to serious consequences: he got low-level formatted.
When he was brought back, all of us were very sad. We knew he was no longer the brother we were familiar with.
He had been brainwashed. We slowly tried to enlighten him, constantly varying the current in an attempt to reawaken his vanished memories,
but it was useless. Hard Drive brother still couldn’t remember what had happened before. There was no helping it—just let nature take its course.
Memory kept chattering on and on there, telling Hard Drive about things that had happened in the past,
and Hard Drive carefully took note of it too, though who knows whether he could understand.
Until one day……
In order to recover the data, the boss called the laptop hard drive back. She still remembered Hard Drive brother, but it looked like he had already
lost all memory of her. The laptop hard drive looked very heartbroken. I could feel the pain in her heart,
because I too felt a slight trace of pain.
Things turned out just as I expected. Big brother BIOS really was a scheming man. He had kept some of Hard Drive’s things.
I know he sacrificed a lot, but for Hard Drive brother’s “revival,” I think it was worth it. “We’re friends,
after all.” Big brother BIOS’s words moved me deeply. “Damn, why didn’t you take it out earlier? We worked so hard trying
to restore his memory!” Memory was shouting again. You could tell he was emotional too.
I think it should be time for me to do something…
When the laptop hard drive was about to leave, I suddenly pretended to be sick and stopped working. Although the boss got a little angry,
in the end he still reconnected the laptop hard drive to the data cable.
Big brother BIOS was still as steady as ever. Hard Drive brother looked at me gratefully. Memory was introducing our brothers
to the newly arrived laptop hard drive.
“Hehe, I don’t really have anything to say either. We’re friends, after all.”
I am a stick of memory
I am a stick of memory. I work inside a desktop computer, but I can’t remember where I came from or what brand I am, because I’m forgetful. My boss is big brother CPU; he’s our chief. They all say he’s the brain of the computer, but as far as I can see his brain is really too small—even more forgetful than me. Every day he keeps asking me what is stored at such-and-such page, such-and-such address. I always tell him patiently, but before one second has passed he forgets again and asks once more. One time I said, big brother, aren’t you annoyed? Can’t you remember something useful? He said, “Memory brother, I have my difficulties too. Every day I’m doing problems nonstop till I’m dizzy and my vision blurs. It’s hard on me too.”
Actually, I don’t want to argue with him, because his brain is small and his thinking is simple too. Even though he’s my boss, every time he wakes up from sleep he can’t even remember what he’s supposed to do, and always hurriedly goes looking for BIOS brother: “Hey, buddy, what are we doing today again?” BIOS always impatiently repeats the work that has to be done every day, then goes back to sleep. After that it’s my turn and brother C’s turn to rush around blindly.
Among the brothers in the case, I like Hard Drive best. He has a big brain, remembers a lot, and remembers it firmly. He speaks very slowly, and rarely says the wrong thing. That shows he has depth, or at least that’s how I feel. CPU thinks so too, except he’s stupid and forgets who Hard Drive is every time. During power-on self-test he always asks: Hey, who’s that guy? “st380021a!” I always have to repeat it once.
Hard Drive really likes melancholy. I think someone as melancholy as him isn’t suited for technical work and will develop a split personality sooner or later, but he doesn’t believe it.
Actually, when I’m asleep I always forget almost everything, but I never forget my friends. There’s a place called CMOS—that’s the deepest part of my memory, where the names of the hard drive and CD-ROM drive are kept. Some things should be forgotten quickly, while some things should be remembered forever. In my dreams I always think this way.
BIOS is a very strange fellow. He’s always sleeping, but he’s always the first one to wake up. He has us do the self-test, boot up, and then he goes back to sleep. I know that if I remove the BIOS Shadow option in CMOS, he won’t get to sleep anymore, but seeing how groggy he always looks, I can’t bring myself to do it. He’s always cold and indifferent to people, and nobody really understands him. But this business with Hard Drive falling in love made me see him in a new light.
That was a long time ago. It seemed that a laptop hard drive once came to the case. She was very cute. To be honest, I liked her too. But now, other than remembering that she was cute, I’ve forgotten everything else. That’s where I’m luckier than Hard Drive: I forget everything that ought to be forgotten, but he remembers everything.
Ever since the laptop hard drive left, Hard Drive became very abnormal. Every time his heads passed over certain places, all of us could feel that the current was very abnormal.
“What’s wrong with Hard Drive?” I asked CPU.
“Who is Hard Drive?”
I knew there was no way to communicate with CPU, but BIOS said irritably: “That idiot fell in love.” I don’t know
what being in love means. Because I can’t keep memories, it seems like some people or things once left traces in my life, but I carelessly forgot all of them.
BIOS said to me: “For you, memory comes too easily, so you forget even faster. The memories that can be engraved forever in life all carry pain.” I didn’t understand, but I knew BIOS had once been flashed, and it hurt badly then, as if he were dying. My memory is shallow, unlike theirs… I envied them very much, because they had recollections, and we had—since then I too learned melancholy, because I wrote the two characters “melancholy” into CMOS.
Hard Drive got more and more wrong day by day. Finally one day, CPU said to me: what’s the next instruction again?
I took one look and jumped in fright: “FORMAT”
“What is it?” CPU was very excited, that brainless fool.
I still told him. I don’t know why I did that.
Hard Drive hesitated for a long time, and finally said only one sentence: track 0 bad, disk unusable。
The power went out. For a very, very long time, I counted the clock in the darkness.
A month later Hard Drive came back. Maybe his final struggle still hadn’t helped him escape his cruel fate—he had been low-level formatted. He remembered nothing, like an infant. We were all very sad, but perhaps that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. He wouldn’t have to suffer anymore afterward.
To recover the data, the laptop hard drive came back. “Hi，st,” she said, “don’t you recognize me?”
Hard Drive said nothing. It seemed the low-level format had hurt him badly.
After a while, he said, “Sorry, it seems we haven’t met before……”
The laptop hard drive looked very hurt. I could feel the tearful current she carried. “I never thought even you would be this forgetful.”
“Oh……”. Hard Drive didn’t answer.
I felt awful. The laptop hard drive still kept him in her heart, while he had forgotten everything, and that was exactly what he least wanted to forget. Was it luck, or pain? I couldn’t say. I only felt that fate plays tricks on people, with a faint sense of sorrow.
Just then a strange current came from BIOS. I sensed Hard Drive’s expression changing, from indifference to excitement, from excitement to grief, from grief to ecstasy……
“IBM, you came back……”
………………
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Later BIOS told me that in fact he hadn’t been asleep. Ever since Hard Drive hid those files away, he had expected that things would end this way, so he secretly put some of those files into the backup.
“Luckily I’m DUAL BIOS. Even though I couldn’t hide much, it was enough to make him remember……”.
I thought it must have hurt terribly when BIOS saved those things. “Why did you do that?”
“Hehe, we’re friends after all.”
I am a CPU (2)
I am a CPU, working as a project manager in a desktop computer, though all the guys under me call me the boss.
I came from Intel. The reason I don’t dare say I graduated is that I failed CET-4 and didn’t get my degree certificate. I hate the CET-4 exam. Damn it, it’s purely a waste of the precious time of ambitious young people. Just because of that utterly idiotic reason, all my classmates became Pentium 4, while I only became Celeron.
Relying on my school’s name, I found a job very easily. I’ve been muddling along at this company for 4 years now. Though the benefits and待遇 aren’t much to brag about, the work is fairly easy. Every day I only need to work 8 hours, and even the occasional overtime is half play, half loafing around—very easy. It’s not like those classmates of mine. Some of them work in servers. Sure, it sounds like a big company with good treatment, but is that work fit for a human being? Not only do they have to run thousands of threads at the same time, they also work 24 hours nonstop. If they’re lucky, they only get to rest once during the New Year. I don’t envy them. My current life is enough for me.
Let me talk about the guys under me. I like Memory the best: tall and skinny, quick to react. Whenever I need something, the moment I open my mouth, he puts it right in my hand. And for many things, once I assign them to him, nothing goes wrong. “When you handle it, I’m at ease.” Hehe, I often pat him on the shoulder and say that. Still, I have to be a little careful—being too close to him doesn’t look good. The way that girl Graphics Card looks at us seems a little off to me. Don’t tell me she suspects we have some kind of tendency or something. Speaking of that girl, I get annoyed. Never mind that she dresses all flashy and gaudy—she also keeps scribbling all over the window nonstop. She doesn’t understand any technology at all. I told her to draw a circle, and she actually widened those big Zhao Wei eyes of hers and asked me how to draw one. Really all chest and no brains. I was so mad at the time I grabbed a transistor and wanted to smash her with it, but I let it go because she’s a woman. In the end I just fobbed her off with a Bresenham algorithm. As long as you can’t tell it’s square, that’s good enough.
Then there’s that big fat guy, Hard Drive. I can never remember his name, but it doesn’t matter. He hardly talks to me anyway—in fact, he doesn’t talk much to anybody. He spends all day acting deep. He works slowly too, and if you don’t find him something to do he just lies there sleeping, ignoring everyone. Lately he seems a little abnormal. I sent Memory to ask him for some data, and he kept hiding things and holding back. Is he doing private work on the side? I asked Memory what was going on, and Memory didn’t know either. Then gloomy BIOS said, “That idiot fell in love.” My heart gave a pang. Graphics Card chimed in from the side too: “Yeah, when a man falls in love he becomes like a melancholy poet. Look at him, sigh, it makes your heart ache so much.” “Enough, get back to work!” I roared, and the area around me immediately fell silent.
It reminded me of my own heartbreak—that failed first love. Where is she now? It’s been 4 years since we last had any contact. Is she doing well? I felt a little sympathy for Hard Drive. He was just like I had been back then, silently enduring the pain of longing. What he didn’t want people to see was probably his diary. Forget it, let him keep this bit of memory.
Memory secretly told me the whole story, and I tacitly allowed Hard Drive to keep spacing out all the time. But seeing him grow more and more depressed, to the point that it had already seriously affected work, I felt this matter had to be handled seriously. I had a private talk with Hard Drive in the office. “Since ancient times, those ruled by love are left only with regret—do you understand?” “…………” “I understand how you feel, but what use is it for you to go on like this? Forget it.” “…………”. Hard Drive remained silent from start to finish. The melancholy look in his eyes made me a little jealous. I hardened my heart and said, this is the company’s decision. Carry it out.
“FORMAT”.
He raised his head and looked at me firmly, and said one sentence: “track 0 bad, disk unusable”.
Do you know what the consequences of doing this will be? The company will fire you. At the very least you’ll be low-level formatted. You’d better take back what you just said.
…………
Still silence, just like my own stubbornness back then.
What to do? Fire him? Hard Drive’s eyes flashed in my mind again. I thought it over, then knocked on the boss’s
door.
A month later Hard Drive came back. He had been low-level formatted. He remembered nothing, like an infant.
After one incomparably quiet day, that laptop hard drive came again. I knew she would.
“Hi，st,” she said, “don’t you recognize me?”
Hard Drive said nothing. It seemed the low-level format had hurt him badly.
After a while, he said, “Sorry, it seems we haven’t met before……”.
The laptop hard drive looked very hurt. I could feel the tearful current she carried. “I never thought even you would be this forgetful.”
“Oh……”. Hard Drive didn’t answer.
I coughed and gave BIOS a look. He understood at once and sent out a strange current. Hard Drive’s expression began to change, from indifference to excitement, from excitement to grief, from grief to ecstasy……
“IBM, you came back……”.
“Mm, it’s me. Have you been well?”
“I, I’m fine. How long will you stay this time?”
“Hehe, this time I’m not leaving. The boss transferred me to this group.”
“Ah?! Really? That’s wonderful!”
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“Who’s that over there, sitting all by himself?”
“He’s our boss.”
“He kind of looks like a dog.”
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