The people stuck using ancient Windows computers

Repeater said:
And I have an Apple 2e with all the necessary peripherals on the shelf.
Crap...guess I am old!
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The physics lab I used in college was considered "top tier" with Apple 2e's available for some of us to work with. (Early versions of photoeyes could be connected to do timing experiments, early motor controllers for small DC motors, etc.). The "computer lab" was outfitted with Vic Commodore 64s. My first computer class in college was learning FORTRAN 77 and transitioning from cards to text code. All of it was done with dial up modems to the university system mainframe, dial the number, put the handset in the cups. I think it was a screaming 600 Baud connection!
 
Think about some of the decades old computers NASA has to maintain to communicate with the older space probes still in operation.

Gave in this afternoon and ordered a replacement for my shop computer, it is 13 years old and not Windows 11 capable. Unfortunately I need the Windows security updates that will no longer be available for Windows 10. Still have a Dell laptop that runs perfectly using Windows XP.
 
45Smashemflat said:
TRS 80, TI 99/4A, Commodore 64….. Punchcards and cassette tapes. Yeah, I was impressed with 8" Floppies. I'm old.
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About 40 years ago we were issued TRS80s laptops, quickly became known as TRaSh 80s, in the days of acoustic couplers for phone/modem connection. Many of us came up travel kits of alligator clips, small screw drivers and RJ-11 plugs to work.radio shack trs 80
 
If anyone has an old PC that reads 5 1/2" disks, Dene Grigar, director of the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University, Vancouver, would like to hear from you!
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YES!!!!!!!!!! I had one for years! I was so irked when the next computer I bought only read 3.5" floppy disks. Fortunately for me, I uploaded the data from those disks before I wound up with a newer computer that doesn't read anything but CDs.

Ahhhh...............the old days...........DOS only.......................orange letters on a black screen............ dial-ups...........the TI keyboard that connected to your TV, making it a monitor for the limited use of the funny little "cards" you inserted..............mag/punch cards........... :ROFLMAO:
 
I know little about scanners (I do have one but haven't used it for many years). Difficult for me to comprehend why any scanner would cost $50K? What would such an expensive scanner be used for?
 
ISCS Yoda said:
Ahhhh...............the old days...........DOS only.......................orange letters on a black screen............ dial-ups...........the TI keyboard that connected to your TV, making it a monitor for the limited use of the funny little "cards" you inserted..............mag/punch cards........... :ROFLMAO:
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Back in my college days, PCs didn't exist, doubt that they had even been thought of. All they had were IBM mainframes. I had to do all my programming on punch cards. Make up a deck, put a rubber band around it and drop in into a slot in the wall. Some troll would run it, and you picked up your run printout from a bin the next day. Very frustrating. If you made one error on one card, it would not run, and you had to correct the card and repeat the process. Lots of IF…THENs and GOTOs. My first job out of college I was offered the position of setting up a data processing department as no one else in the company knew the first thing about programming. I declined the offer, didn't think I had enough background and experience. I really didn't, as I had taken just two programming courses in college. I probably should have accepted it, as the position I took instead did not work out well as it was a bad fit for me. I despised it and got out.
 
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DWalt said:
I know little about scanners (I do have one but haven't used it for many years). Difficult for me to comprehend why any scanner would cost $50K? What would such an expensive scanner be used for?
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In the color prepress industry, that used to buy you abou a two week timeshare on a 'real' scanner.

[....walks away laughing in Linotype-Hell AG]
 
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All of my Windows computers have upgraded to Win 11, even the one that wouldn't upgrade until I doubled the memory. The two computers that Windows was 'broken' on are now running Linux Mint, Cinnamon version. For web, email and common stuff it's just fine. More specialized stuff have work arounds, but they are clumsy. Like my digital/audio interface that I use with audio software needed some donloads, and they work, but are a pain. I used to use an Apple IIe with 5 1/4" floppies, but it has been a while and I held out for 3 1/4" 'stiffies'.
 
I used Windows 7 for a dozen years. Never a problem, did exactly what I needed, simply. Windows 11 as an operating system is pretty good unless you want to do something "independent" of Microsoft. I took half an hour to get a photo off my I phone yesterday, kept trying to get me to upload to the cloud/ buy Office 365. Had to copy/paste it into a folder while closing over and over the "download photos to One Drive/buy Office 365" pop up. Microsoft is the devil. Joe
 
Linux is close to being capable of full-time duty rather than just an interesting experiment. I run it on old obsolete Macs long abandoned by Apple. Performance is excellent (I'm running right now with Linux Mint 21 on a Mac Pro 5,1 from 2012).

Integration with my iStuff is better than I expected, in some cases better than macOS. An example: Mom texted me a document that she wanted me to print. Plugged the phone in the mac to transfer it...and...Apple provides no way to get it. Or at least no way while the internet was down even when directly connected by cable. Rebooted into linux --- and the iphone shows up in their file browser, all I had to do is navigate to it and copy it. easy-peasy.

Some parts that still need to be fixed/improved:
Upgrades: there really is no way to upgrade to a new version of the OS. Mint has a tool to do so, but it doesn't work. You have to uninstall/downgrade everything in the system until it matches the configuration it expects, then the upgrade will likely produce a non-working system anyway. It is quicker and more reliable to do a fresh reinstall on a different drive or partition and then reinstall all your apps, since you will have to do it anyway.

Fragility: Updates sometimes breaks the system to the point that it no longer boots. ALWAYS do a backup before updating. Recovery from a broken update can be frustrating.

grub: grub is the default bootloader. It is also terrible, fragile, and is frequently corrupted which means it won't boot. There are repair tools, but they don't work all the time (my batting average is .000). Fortunately this is easily fixed by installing refind.
 
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