Back to the good old days!
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Forum Name: General Discussion
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URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=19158
Printed Date: 30 March 2026 at 9:36am
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Topic: Back to the good old days!
Posted By: Ninjai
Subject: Back to the good old days!
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 1:05pm
Browsing through the active users list this was an odd suprise:
When was the last time anyone used Win95?  |
Replies:
Posted By: michael
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 2:03pm
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Oh you'll be surprised how many old PC's are still out there. Donated PC's for the underprivileged etc. ------------- http://baumannphoto.com" rel="nofollow - Blog | http://mpgtracker.com" rel="nofollow - MPG Tracker |
Posted By: dpyers
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 3:36pm
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In a lot of countries, the import duties on hardware often exceed the cost of the hardware by a considerable margin, Lot of old stuff out there that can't handle the newer OS's.
------------- 
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me. |
Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 3:47pm
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well i run win 98 on a virtual pc and one time i logged into this forum from win95 only for the sake of it..hahaha
------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss"> 
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Posted By: Mikey
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 5:22pm
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Alot of council wares were sold of lately around my area and many of them were still loaded with win95. They were selling comps with 4GB drives, running win95  ------------- Handyman man? |
Posted By: Gullanian
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 5:56pm
| Selling? How much??! £10? |
Posted By: Mikey
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 9:02pm
Pretty much first come first served really lol i think there was a minimal charge. ------------- Handyman man? |
Posted By: Tegwin
Date Posted: 05 April 2006 at 11:48pm
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One of my clients still has WIndows 3.11 installed on a machine. He has an old 16 bit app which according to him "... just a great job and is all he needs...".. Its too expensive to buy the new version, so he is perfectly happy using Windows 3.11.. |
Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 06 April 2006 at 9:01am
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all computers should be shipped with self destruction timers.. this will increase corporate productivity by saving developers the pain stake of keeping applications backward compatible.. in the corporate anything which improces productivity, efficiency, cost effictiveness is fine..
------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 4:51am
What, and bankrupt everyone! Most new OS versions WON'T run on older hardware. If you want to run Vista, you will most likely need to buy a new PC. It ain't gonna run on what most people have these days.
Plus, there are some software applications that are no longer supported, but no good replacement has been found.
And do I really need a screaming fast machine with the latest OS for the computer that I have monitoring all my websites for outages? No. Windows 98 on a 350Mhz computer works just fine for testing to see if everything is up and running. I'd be stupid to buy an $800 machine, or even a $300 machine to do something an older machine can do for free. Plus, its one less application typing up my RAM on my main computers.
Older computers tend to self-destruct by themselves over time. I don't need an expiration date on my computer and OS telling me to send an e-check to Microsoft and Dell every year or so.
And its more efficient if you don't spend money on things that work fine the way they are. When I worked in the data center at a bank, they had everything, from green screens to the latest Linux clusters to StorageTek Silos. As long as the old green screen dumb terminals worked for what they were used for, they were used. You don't need a Windows XP machine with the latest hardware to answer tape mounts, for example. A short command line was all that was needed, and worked fine. It'd be a major waste of money to replace it with something newer just for the sake or replacing it with something newer. ------------- http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums |
the boss wrote:Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 9:05am
And that is a reason why soo many companies and finiancial institues get compromised. Their logic of.."if its working, it needs no fixing of upgrading" creates a hacker haven on older OS versions whose vuneribility is well known...unless ur datacenter is not at all conntected to public networks and internet.. which these days is quite rare ------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 10:03am
No, the dumb terminal was not connected to the internet, it was connected to the mainframe.
 Dumb terminals CAN'T be connected to the internet... they are... err, dumb.And just because you use old hardware and software does not mean its insecure. In fact, security was so tight at the bank that only management had computers that could access the internet, and they were locked down computers with the latest hardware and the latest secure corporate OS. Employees in the data center could not access the internet at all. We had to go through 4 card readers, and go past 2 unarmed guards, a mantrap, and an armed guard just to get to the data center and we had to have our security badges with our pictures visible at all times. Older equipment was used in a physically secure environment where only authorized personel could type in a command line, and none of that equipment could access the internet or be accessed by the internet (or even be accessed by anyone outside the department). Millions of dollars was spent on security and anything that accessed the internet or was accessed by the internet was the latest hardware and software, or thoroughly patched and supported.
And what about people who don't access the internet. Did you know that my grandpa used a computer for years to write letters but had no interest on getting on the internet? His computer should shut off too, even though it still works as a word processor just fine?
You are assuming that all hardware is connected to the internet. Not necessarily so, and in secure environments, internet access is routed through gateways and firewalls and access is monitored and controlled. And some people, like my grandpa, didn't even have dial-up.
As far as my Windows 98 machine, it is behind a firewall, has the latest patches, and only checks on my web servers and web pages. It does not serve web pages to the internet and cannot be accessed by the internet (any attempt is blocked by the router's firewall) with the exception of responses to requests I have it make. It has an internal IP so it's ports can't be accessed from outside the router. Pretty secure since I don't do any risky behavior with it.
I can see what you are saying about some people using machinery insecurely, but quite frankly, those same people use NEW technology insecurely too. Do you know how many people I meet that have brand spanking new computers with the latest OS, and they have never run Windows Update or installed any patches? New hardware and software does not mean security. Far from it.
The problem isn't the hardware or the software, its the users. In the right hands, even Windows 95 can be made secure. In the wrong hands, Windows XP or even Windows Vista can be made insecure. Even Linux, which supposedly is more secure than Windows, can be made insecure if put into the wrong hands.
We shouldn't have to pay for a new computer and operating system every 2 years just because some people don't know what they are doing. And what about the people who it took them a year to save up for that computer. The retired? The poor? The student? You are saying it should just shut off on them and then they have to save up for another computer? I guess no computers for the poor then, huh? ------------- http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums |
Posted By: pedalcars
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 12:25pm
Clearly, "Today at 12:43pm"!  ------------- http://www.pedalcars.info/ - www.pedalcars.info The most fun on four wheels 
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Posted By: Scotty32
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 2:02pm
oooh that'd be fun - all WinXPs would blow up, becose of the "expiry date" for vista - but vista is delayed, so the world would be without PCs (assuming everyone used windows) ------------- S2H.co.uk - http://www.s2h.co.uk/wwf/" rel="nofollow - WebWiz Mods and Skins For support on my mods + skins, please use http://www.s2h.co.uk/forum/" rel="nofollow - my forum . |
Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 8:13pm
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Everyone would be forced to switch to Linux if Windows XP shut off before Vista shipped. There would be mass chaos!
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Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 10:58pm
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well did i say self destruct timelines to be set soo tight.. may be 20 years is a fair time.. but anyway it was meant for humor only..i did be dumb to wish seriously for anything like that.. ------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 11:05pm
That's the one problem with the internet. Its hard to tell the difference between serious and joking sometimes.  And while you may be joking, Microsoft is seriously toying with the idea. Because of Vista's delay, Microsoft had to continue supporting versions it planned on discontinuing support for. If Microsoft had their way, there would be an expiration date and every two years you would have to upgrade. Big business balked at that idea, and rightly so. If Microsoft could get away with it, we would all be paying them a never-ending subscription to use their software. ------------- http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums |
Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 11:11pm
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my ultimate nightmare is that microsoft takes over the world and we are forced to pay suscribtion and lisence cost for everything.. even the double click feature of mouse... they will team up with amm major hard ware vendors and windows will come preinstalled on a ROM integrated with the mobo...and the non windows hardware will either be non existent of too expensive ------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 13 April 2006 at 11:25pm
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Thank God for OpenOffice.org!
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Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 10:00am
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bad point about open office..their files are not compatible with MS office
------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 11:34am
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I don't like supporting old versions of my software either, it's to time consuming, but then I offer free upgrades to get round this problem. If MS don't want to support old versions then they should give you free upgrades!! As far as http://openOffice.org - openOffice.org goes I think their version 2 is really good, it is compatible with all MS Office Documents I have tried it in and you can choose to save in office format. I also find OpenOffice much faster and easier to use than MS Office, with a much cleaner, simpler interface. Since using OpenOffice.org I have now dumped MS Office completely as I much prefer it and is also saves me loads of $$$ over MS Office as I have 2 computers a laptop. I think now that OpenOffice 2 is out, MS Office have got a battle on their hand as why should you pay $$$ for MS Office when in my opinion you can get all the Tools I need in OpenOffice for free in a product I think is better. |
Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 11:44am
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MS has got a new strategy now.. fill the software with soo much gibberish and options.. that the end user is totally confused..
------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 2:05pm
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I remember when the strategy was to write tight code that executed fast. ------------- http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums |
Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 2:24pm
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it was never i belive ..otherwise windows 95/98 would have never seen light of the day.. just an intresting find here..why is windows 98 so unbeliveably stable in virtual pc??
------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 2:50pm
No, I was talking way back in the day before Windows even existed, back in the old DOS days where 640K was though to be all you would ever need on a computer, anything above 640K was "extended" memory (which most applications at the time could not access), most computers had two floppies and no hard drive, and when hard drives came out we were all in awe at the whopping 10 MB of hard drive space! Back then you had to write code that fit on a floppy... and I'm not talking about those 3-1/2 inch ones, I'm talking the 5-1/4 inch ones... back in the days when floppy disks were floppy. You had to write tight code because it wouldn't fit in the available memory otherwise. ------------- http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums |
Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 2:51pm
Probably because it doesn't have to interact with any of the hardware directly. ------------- http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums |
Posted By: dpyers
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 4:14pm
Not a new strategy, and not unique to MS. Once you released any word processor/spreadsheet 1.0, you pretty much had all the basic functionality you needed. Everything since then is user interfac to make it easier or quicker to do more complex things. Once yo do that for the most commonly used complex tasks by the majority of users, the only place to go is to go after stuff that's used less frequently or my fewer users. A computer spends a tiny, tiny amount of time actually computing. The vast majority of it's resources are spent on presentation and usability. -------------
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me. |
Posted By: dpyers
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 5:06pm
I think we need to define what we mean by tight code. to me, tight code is high-performance(fast) code - not necessarily clear code, and not necessarily concise code. I've been coding since the 60's when it was all machine op codes and you had to phyically toggle in a boot address for a machine - none of that fancy "push-a-button" to start a computer stuff. Going to assembler was a major breakthrough but I spent years working towards tight (high performance) code. At one time however, it was pointed out to me that machines had gotten bigger, faster, cheaper. An hour of my time spent tightening code wouldn't pay for itself in a hundred years of code execution. Coding doesn't provide the majority of my income but even when it did, time spent improving performance for something that worked was time spent not generating revenue. Time spent 3 or 5 years down the road trying to figure out what I did in the code was not time spent making money. The only code that needs to be tight (tight=performance) is the kernal and device I/O. Everything else needs to concentrate on being clear and concise - e.g. readily maintainable. Tightness and clarity are often at odds with one another. Please note though that non-tight code does not equate to poor programming practices for the language involved. Nor is it sn sbsolute rule - there are always instances where you need to tweak performance - usually in the data handling area. Avoiding poor programming practies means staying away from the known problems with the language - not necessailty tweaking for performance although by doing so, you may inprove performance. In ASP for example, there's 10 or 12 things to avoid. Some of them keep your app from crashing - like closing and releasing objects, keeping db connections out of global.asa, etc. But some of them are to avoid performance hits - like a select Case statement is many times faster than multiple If's. Good code in my estimation is clear, well formatted/structured, and follows the language conventions of the programming language you're using (e.g. Option Explicit, Select Case, prefixing variables so you know what data types they contain, etc.). Good code is not always the fastest code, but is the most maintainable code. -------------
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me. |
Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 15 April 2006 at 7:15pm
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True. I know that Bill Gates did tweaking in Assembler with the original DOS to get it tight, and that was one of this goals at the time. It's interesting how times have changed from when he was still in college coding his first programs to now.
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Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 21 April 2006 at 11:04pm
i bet he cant code hello world in todays vb or C#  ------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 22 April 2006 at 7:24am
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When you are a powerful man, you no longer have to know how to do everything yourself. A wise man knows how to get things done even if he does not know how to do it himself.
Whether you like the man or not, you must admit he does get things done and makes a lot of money doing it. ------------- http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums |
Posted By: the boss
Date Posted: 22 April 2006 at 1:01pm
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well it was supposed to be humor.. i actually give little sh*t to about his programming abilities and wish one day he plans to throw away a million or two at me
------------- http://www.web2messenger.com/theboss">
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Posted By: Mart
Date Posted: 23 April 2006 at 9:33pm
| Bill Gates knows quite a lot about modern (microsoft) technologies as his current title is along the lines of senior software engineer. AFAIK he doesn't have as much of an influence in the business side as he used to |
Posted By: michael
Date Posted: 23 April 2006 at 10:35pm
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IIRC is title is Chief Architect and I am sure he still knows quite a bit about inner working in certain apps. Though I think his focus is more general like the vision he had about .net, web 2.0 etc. ------------- http://baumannphoto.com" rel="nofollow - Blog | http://mpgtracker.com" rel="nofollow - MPG Tracker |
Posted By: huwnet
Date Posted: 24 April 2006 at 9:32am
| A self-destruct timer might speed Microsoft up a bit |