I could have used this when I was a kid playing games and would go "sorry, my cpu is bad" whenever I had lag issues even though the cpu was actually okay and it was really because of playing on a laptop with integrated graphics and a spotty internet connection, because at the time I thought CPU was just a short way of saying ComPUter...

[–] grue@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Could be worse: you could've been one of those people who called their CRT monitor the "computer" and called the computer the "hard drive".

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 3 points 8 months ago

I think think for awhile as a very young kid I thought the former (by the time I learned about hard drives I knew what a monitor and computer were), but in my defense, my first exposure to computers and what my family had at that age was one of those old imac computers that really did have the screen and the computer in the same device.

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Wow, that's even worse than calling the whole computer "the CPU".

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

As long ask you know the difference between computer and Hard Drive...

[–] nexussapphire@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

My mother still calls her desktop the CPU. Infact you could make this chart with everything inside the computer called CPU except for the ram and the hard drive and your pretty much there.

Edit: I was upgrading her graphics card and she asked "Is the CPU going to work?" The first thing I said was "what's wrong with the computer. Does it still turn on?"

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

My computer science textbook in school called the entire tower as the CPU.

[–] nexussapphire@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

I guess it is the central processing unit!

[–] PatMustard@feddit.uk 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I blame games back then for calling bots/AI "CPU" characters, short for "computer"

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago

No I'm pretty sure that was also literally referring to the CPU inside the computer or whatever console you were playing on, as that is the specific module that would be calculating the moves for (or, "playing as") said bot player.