Hello all. I'm still learning the basics of C++ and at the moment I'm working on a nice little program that lets the user 'have a conversation' with the computer. The computer asks the user various questions and saves the answers as variables etc.

I was wondering if there is a way to get the computer name? For example, my computer is called KING (named it after my xbox - did you know every xbox has a name?). If the program was running on my computer it should go like this:

(computer) Hi there, what's your name?
(me) Edd.
(computer) Hello Edd, my name's KING.

etc etc, you get the picture. Is it possible to get C++ to read the name of the machine it is running on? It'd be quite a nice program if the computer can tell the user about itself. It's like 2 people getting to know each other, only one is a machine.

At the end of the program it tells the user that if they learned C++ then they could have a much more in-depth conversation, as it doesn't know English too well.

The whole idea is inspired by me learning C++, I was thinking how it is a language, a way to communicate with a computer to get it to do what you want. Writing this program will hopefully inspire more people to start learning C++.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions of things to include that'd be good too. I can get the program to ask the user whatever I want it to, but I don't really know how to get the computer to tell the user about itself. I don't suppose a machine knows how old it is? Or how long ago the OS was installed or something? How to I get it to detect what hardware it has? It'd be nice for the computer to be able to say things like "I have a 256 megabyte graphics card" or stuff.

Also, I leave my PC on 24/7 and reboot it about once a week, does my computer know this? Does it know how long it's been 'awake'?

Basically I'd like to know what sort of things the computer knows about itself and what I could easily get it to say. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.