Today many PCs parallel the attic, with their guardians loath to allow anyone direct access to the hard disk or screen. Until they are in trouble and need help, they guard access with the same diligence they afford their wardrobe or home. However, when deadlines are fast approaching and nothing is working, then the defences are dropped to give an opportunity for repair. At this point the desire for privacy and security are waived in the interest of survival.

A non-techno friend recently called me late one evening because his PC was running badly. Apparently it was sluggish, crashing regularly, and had been extremely unreliable for weeks. Now he had reached an impasse and could not work, and his deadline was just 10 hours away, the next morning. So I was firmly invited round to his home and given total access and freedom of action. Please, just fix it fast, was the plea.

I started to roam the desktop, which resembled a major motorway accident site, with wreckage and fallout extending well into the hard disk. What a mess, how did it ever work? Movie files and documents had been placed inside preference folders and other obscure files inside the operating system, applications had found their way into working folders, files and objects had been duplicated with multiple copies in diverse locations. And worse, at a first scan, over 30 per cent of the hard disk appeared to be chaotically occupied by junk.

Sitting with my friend, and feeling slightly uncomfortable, I started the clean up process. Junking, erasing, filing, renaming, replacing files, folders and objects: nothing was safe as I trashed over 50Mb. The next step was to place all the working files into a folder, and all the applications into another. After an hour I felt ready to run the diagnostic pack, and we took a break for coffee while it did its stuff. An hour later the PC was debugged, defragged, and running sweeter than ever before.

A few days later I opened my laptop and started my routine cull of old files and messages. Perhaps it was the memory of my friend's PC, or childhood attic, that prompted me to examine my applications and operating system. I started to delete, or place items into a "Not Used" folder.

Stickies, scrap book, print drivers, modem scripts, art folders, voices, acres of fonts, non-English options and much more were deleted or isolated. Having cleaned out this computer attic I found the machine booted up and operated faster, and suffered fewer spurious delays and lock-ups. As I continued to delete soft-junk, some applications were trimmed to 30 per cent of their original size, and I realised I might have found a Network Computer in the attic.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk