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I think you nail it right here. Gaming is a specialist activity poorly suited to general purpose computing. The only reason we ever used one machine for both wa

I think you nail it right here. Gaming is a specialist activity poorly suited to general purpose computing. The only reason we ever used one machine for both was that home computers were expensive. Not having to support games in your daily driver means you can optimise it for real tasks, and also optimise your gaming platform for games. It's a win/win.

orbital-decay 2y ago
> Gaming is a specialist activity poorly suited to general purpose computing. I think this is terribly myopic. Gaming and game modding/development resulted from it hugely contributed to general purpose computing in general, possibly more than any other activity. And it was only possible with games running on a general-purpose platform, not a gaming appliance.
- dissent 2y ago
  I know, I lived through it, and it was great at the time. Note that I was responding to OP who said he he'd set aside a Windows PC just for gaming. That would qualify as a gaming appliance in this context.
  - orbital-decay 2y ago
    This might be true for competitive games with an intrusive anti-cheat, but not for gaming in general. I also keep an isolated PC specifically for these games, for my kids and myself - only because of the anticheat. But games like KSP always go to the main PC full of tools and possibilities to mod and tinker.
    - npteljes 2y ago
      Yes, in reality I do both as well. I dual-boot my PC, I have two 1 terabyte SSDs in it, one for Linux, and one for Windows. The online multiplayer stuff I do on the Windows partition, it has the launchers, discord, and a bunch of things like that - and none of my personal data, just what's very strictly necessary for gaming, and even then, I'm often 100 years old, and live at "Screwyou Avenue 1" and things like that. And on my Linux partition I live my real life, but even that has the Steam launcher with some games, which I play not particularly isolated from anything else.
npteljes 2y ago
I see the point in this. While PC can do everything, we can specialize it ways, and if we separate the concerns, it enables further specialization. In fact I think (and experienced) that such separation enables a healthier lifestyle as well. I can do things like the gaming notifications not entering when I'm focused on administration, and similarly, I don't get the life planner updates while I'm gaming. If one has the resources to compartmentalize, I think it's a worthwhile effort.

orbital-decay 2y ago

> Gaming is a specialist activity poorly suited to general purpose computing. I think this is terribly myopic. Gaming and game modding/development resulted from it hugely contributed to general purpose computing in general, possibly more than any other activity. And it was only possible with games running on a general-purpose platform, not a gaming appliance.

dissent 2y ago
I know, I lived through it, and it was great at the time. Note that I was responding to OP who said he he'd set aside a Windows PC just for gaming. That would qualify as a gaming appliance in this context.
- orbital-decay 2y ago
  This might be true for competitive games with an intrusive anti-cheat, but not for gaming in general. I also keep an isolated PC specifically for these games, for my kids and myself - only because of the anticheat. But games like KSP always go to the main PC full of tools and possibilities to mod and tinker.
  - npteljes 2y ago
    Yes, in reality I do both as well. I dual-boot my PC, I have two 1 terabyte SSDs in it, one for Linux, and one for Windows. The online multiplayer stuff I do on the Windows partition, it has the launchers, discord, and a bunch of things like that - and none of my personal data, just what's very strictly necessary for gaming, and even then, I'm often 100 years old, and live at "Screwyou Avenue 1" and things like that. And on my Linux partition I live my real life, but even that has the Steam launcher with some games, which I play not particularly isolated from anything else.

npteljes 2y ago

I see the point in this. While PC can do everything, we can specialize it ways, and if we separate the concerns, it enables further specialization. In fact I think (and experienced) that such separation enables a healthier lifestyle as well. I can do things like the gaming notifications not entering when I'm focused on administration, and similarly, I don't get the life planner updates while I'm gaming. If one has the resources to compartmentalize, I think it's a worthwhile effort.