Jump to content

Windoze Seven


hilldweller

Recommended Posts

I've just dragged myself, screaming and kicking, into the White Hot New Technology Age that Harold Wilson told us was coming.

I've bought myself a new computer !

I shall be paying for it on the Never Never, even though I paid cash, because my wife will never cease giving me black looks and even blacker comments.

My old desktop was of pensionable age in computer years, and starting to display some of the attributes of it's owner, (loss of memory, funny smells, etc.)

I did think about up-grading but by the time I'd bought a new motherboard, processor, memory, hard disks and operating system it would have cost me more than a new machine.

My new machine boasts 4 processor cores and a Windows 7 operating system. The machine I wanted was only available with a 64 bit O.S. and I thought that that might cause problems with some of my old programs. However with one exception, all seems to be working and it's found drivers for all my gadgets with some of them giving me extra features that weren't there before.

So all in all it's been a rewarding experience and given time I shall learn how to play with about 5% of the Windoze 7 features. Given about ten years more and the wife might start talking to me.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I played around with win7 and lasted about a month before all my PC's went back to a mix of Vista and XP :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've just dragged myself, screaming and kicking, into the White Hot New Technology Age that Harold Wilson told us was coming.

I've bought myself a new computer !

I shall be paying for it on the Never Never, even though I paid cash, because my wife will never cease giving me black looks and even blacker comments.

My old desktop was of pensionable age in computer years, and starting to display some of the attributes of it's owner, (loss of memory, funny smells, etc.)

I did think about up-grading but by the time I'd bought a new motherboard, processor, memory, hard disks and operating system it would have cost me more than a new machine.

My new machine boasts 4 processor cores and a Windows 7 operating system. The machine I wanted was only available with a 64 bit O.S. and I thought that that might cause problems with some of my old programs. However with one exception, all seems to be working and it's found drivers for all my gadgets with some of them giving me extra features that weren't there before.

So all in all it's been a rewarding experience and given time I shall learn how to play with about 5% of the Windoze 7 features. Given about ten years more and the wife might start talking to me.

HD

I am using Windows 7 and I like it.

As you say hilldweller it copes with most things really well and has so far proved to be a very reliable system.

It is called Windows 7 because it is the 7th incarnation of the Windows system.

1 Windows 95

Original Windows development from the previous DOS system using FAT filing system, a major breakthrough in its day, very impressive but very quickly restricted by developments in processor speed, memory capacity and newer, better systems e.g DVD and USB

2 Windows 98

A big improvement on 95 allowing for further development but finally restricted by the FAT system (maximum file size = 2GB)and software structure (.dll's everywhere) In it's final 98SE version it is still the best by far of the Windows 9.x versions

3 Windows ME

Last of the Win 95 /98 line with DOS / FAT32 archetecture. It was a rushed out development and was notoriously unreliable and full of bugs and problems that never got patched due to the move towards the NT system.

4 Windows 2000

A new Windows system developed not directly from DOS but from the NT (New Technology) system and using NTFS disc systems (no file size restrictions). A big improvement on Windows ME, which as their names imply came out in the same year.

5 Windows XP

Next development of the Windows 2000 /NT system. Windows XP was excellent and even today, 10 years after its release, 3 years after MicroSoft wanted to abandon it, the XP system remains in use, popular, and is still available on new, cheap, low power laptops.

6 Windows Vista

A rushed off update to XP with lots of pointless, memory hungry, processor heavy "gimmicks" like aerodeck screens. It was also fussy about what software it would install, how and where and what drivers it would use. It is possibly the NT eqivalent of what Windows ME was to the older system. No new computers now have Vista even though it is only 4 years old.

7 Windows 7

The latest most up to date Windows system. It is every bit as good as XP and will probably ultimately replace it, - enjoy!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am using Windows 7 and I like it.

As you say hilldweller it copes with most things really well and has so far proved to be a very reliable system.

It is called Windows 7 because it is the 7th incarnation of the Windows system.

Windows/286 2.10

Windows/386 2.10

Windows 3.0/3.1

Windows for Workgroups ... 3.11

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am using Windows 7 and I like it.

As you say hilldweller it copes with most things really well and has so far proved to be a very reliable system.

It is called Windows 7 because it is the 7th incarnation of the Windows system.

1 Windows 95

Original Windows development from the previous DOS system using FAT filing system, a major breakthrough in its day, very impressive but very quickly restricted by developments in processor speed, memory capacity and newer, better systems e.g DVD and USB

2 Windows 98

A big improvement on 95 allowing for further development but finally restricted by the FAT system (maximum file size = 2GB)and software structure (.dll's everywhere) In it's final 98SE version it is still the best by far of the Windows 9.x versions

3 Windows ME

Last of the Win 95 /98 line with DOS / FAT32 archetecture. It was a rushed out development and was notoriously unreliable and full of bugs and problems that never got patched due to the move towards the NT system.

4 Windows 2000

A new Windows system developed not directly from DOS but from the NT (New Technology) system and using NTFS disc systems (no file size restrictions). A big improvement on Windows ME, which as their names imply came out in the same year.

5 Windows XP

Next development of the Windows 2000 /NT system. Windows XP was excellent and even today, 10 years after its release, 3 years after MicroSoft wanted to abandon it, the XP system remains in use, popular, and is still available on new, cheap, low power laptops.

6 Windows Vista

A rushed off update to XP with lots of pointless, memory hungry, processor heavy "gimmicks" like aerodeck screens. It was also fussy about what software it would install, how and where and what drivers it would use. It is possibly the NT eqivalent of what Windows ME was to the older system. No new computers now have Vista even though it is only 4 years old.

7 Windows 7

The latest most up to date Windows system. It is every bit as good as XP and will probably ultimately replace it, - enjoy!

Don't forget to mention earlier versions of Windows, I used to own a set of 5.25" cardboard cased floppy disks for Windows 2, and over the years I've used Windows 3 in it's variants, Windows 95, NT4, 98, 2000, ME, and so on to XP.

Windows XP was given an additional lease of life with the unexpected success of the Netbook which was not capable of running Vista. Netbooks can run a basic version of Windows 7 however.

Microsoft are only supporting XP to the extent of supplying system and security updates but they have stated that this support will cease in 2014.

HD

Further to the above I have a vague memory of buying a PC which came with a version of Windows called something like Windows 4. My I. T. department workmates told me to ditch it as it was known to be a "dogs breakfast". It only seemed to be around for a short time and I'm pretty sure that I replaced it with Windows 95.

Does anyone else remember this version which doesn't seem to figure in the official lists, perhaps they'd rather forget it.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Windows/286 2.10

Windows/386 2.10

Windows 3.0/3.1

Windows for Workgroups ... 3.11

Microsoft would now want you to believe that Windows 95 was the first "proper", user friendly version of Windows and although they haven't disowned these earlier versions completely, although they clearly no longer support them, they would rather they were regarded as "prototype" versions of Windows.

There is some sense in this. The earlier versions ran, as indicated by the names of the 286 and 386, on pre Pentium, pre MMX, low powered processors and relied extensively on the user unfriendly, underlying MS - DOS system (the later versions used this in a friendlier user transparent form). These versions of Windows were derived from an earlier system called WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointer) and were among the first system to utilise these principles on which the Windows interactivity is based.

MicroSoft themselves have stated that Windows 7 is so called because it is the 7th version of Windows since 1995.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget to mention earlier versions of Windows, I used to own a set of 5.25" cardboard cased floppy disks for Windows 2, and over the years I've used Windows 3 in it's variants, Windows 95, NT4, 98, 2000, ME, and so on to XP.

Windows XP was given an additional lease of life with the unexpected success of the Netbook which was not capable of running Vista. Netbooks can run a basic version of Windows 7 however.

Microsoft are only supporting XP to the extent of supplying system and security updates but they have stated that this support will cease in 2014.

HD

Further to the above I have a vague memory of buying a PC which came with a version of Windows called something like Windows 4. My I. T. department workmates told me to ditch it as it was known to be a "dogs breakfast". It only seemed to be around for a short time and I'm pretty sure that I replaced it with Windows 95.

Does anyone else remember this version which doesn't seem to figure in the official lists, perhaps they'd rather forget it.

HD

See Richards post, and my immediately previous post for details of the pre Windows 95 versions of Windows.

The NT system was developed independently of Windows in versions like NT4 but was brought into the Windows line with Windows 2000, which used NT technology as microsoft realised that NT was more versatile and adaptable than the then current Windows 9.x system.

I like XP and still use it a lot, probably as much if not more than Windows 7 at present as my school / work computer runs XP so it's nice to know I will be OK with it until at least 2014.

When Windows stopped support for Windows 98 (another of my favourite, older. operating systems)in 2006 within months every software provider had done the same making it difficult to continue using the system at all. I have a feeling that this won't happen with XP as it is much deeper established and more widely used as well as being more compatible with the current system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh for the days of loading Windoze from a floppy .. software for IBM and 100% compatible PCs only VESA graphics cards and 1MB SCSI drives :)

64 Bit Windows 7 and 8GB RAM ... luxury.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh for the days of loading Windoze from a floppy .. software for IBM and 100% compatible PCs only VESA graphics cards and 1MB SCSI drives :)

64 Bit Windows 7 and 8GB RAM ... luxury.

The first "computer" I worked on was an Elliott Automation Arch.

This was installed in the Billet Mill at Samuel Foxes, Stocksbridge Works. It was used to compute the optimum places to cut long red-hot billets in order to best satisfy customer requirements. In other words the billets came out in slightly different lengths and the computer produced a "best fit" in order to minimise wastage.

This computer had a 1K core store for it's memory. For those of more tender years core stores comprised of a matrix of tiny ferrite toroids laced through with extremely thin insulated wire in the X & Y planes with other wires laced through all the cores for read/write and refresh purposes. The bits were stored as magnetic "charges" rather like recording tape.

The computer was initially "programmed" (no Americanisms in those days) by setting a row of key switches to the bit pattern required and then hitting a "store" key.

This was done word by word of code. When the code had been tested it was then outputted to "high-speed" paper tape for subsequent re-loading. We even had a bit of a programme that could punch holes in the end of the tape to form alpha-numeric characters to aid identification.

The maintenance was mostly involved with killing the rats which infested the under-floor wiring space. Bits of Veroboard with strips alternately connected to a high voltage supply provided the best solution provided you removed the remains at regular intervals !

I wonder what today's IT professionals would have made of it all.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh for the days of loading Windoze from a floppy .. software for IBM and 100% compatible PCs only VESA graphics cards and 1MB SCSI drives :)

64 Bit Windows 7 and 8GB RAM ... luxury.

It may be Windows 7 now in 2011

But,

10 Years ago (2001) Windows 2000 and ME were the "new boys", - both now considered obsolete and incapable of running the latest applications.

20 Years ago (1991) Something running DOS on a 286 or 386 processor from programmed 1.44Mb floppies would have been the order of the day.

30 Years ago (1981) a Sinclair ZX81 with 1kb (yes kilobyte!! or 16kb if you could afford it) of memory, black & white display and 1kb programs on cassette tape that took forever to unreliably load were the height of fashion for a home personal computer.

40 Years ago (1971) and a pocket electronic calculator like a Sinclair Cambridge was a new and expensive innovation. Only universities and big companies had real computers then, - and they filled a whole room up, lacked power and reliability. The computer I used at Sheffield Polytechnic in 1974 was like this and was programmed using a set of punched cards.

50 Years ago (1961) you either had to be very good at Maths, know how to use a book of 4 figure logarithmic tables or be able to work a slide rule. All of these concepts seem alien or unknown to the youth of today.

Yes, Windows 7 is a state of the art luxury, - it has 50 years of unbelievable technological progress behind it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may be Windows 7 now in 2011

But,

10 Years ago (2001) Windows 2000 and ME were the "new boys", - both now considered obsolete and incapable of running the latest applications.

20 Years ago (1991) Something running DOS on a 286 or 386 processor from programmed 1.44Mb floppies would have been the order of the day.

30 Years ago (1981) a Sinclair ZX81 with 1kb (yes kilobyte!! or 16kb if you could afford it) of memory, black & white display and 1kb programs on cassette tape that took forever to unreliably load were the height of fashion for a home personal computer.

40 Years ago (1971) and a pocket electronic calculator like a Sinclair Cambridge was a new and expensive innovation. Only universities and big companies had real computers then, - and they filled a whole room up, lacked power and reliability. The computer I used at Sheffield Polytechnic in 1974 was like this and was programmed using a set of punched cards.

50 Years ago (1961) you either had to be very good at Maths, know how to use a book of 4 figure logarithmic tables or be able to work a slide rule. All of these concepts seem alien or unknown to the youth of today.

Yes, Windows 7 is a state of the art luxury, - it has 50 years of unbelievable technological progress behind it.

Before the days of digital computers, but well within the era of the slide rule and well-thumbed log tables, the Analogue Computer was king.

These were extremely expensive and used for high-tech work like aircraft airframe design.

The operating principle was to represent known variables by precise analogue voltages and to use operational amplifiers in complex circuits to add, subtract, multiply, integrate, and divide.

In the early days valves were used as operational amplifiers, but required extremely complex circuitry to reduce thermal drift etc.

With the advent of transistors, and later integrated circuits, operational amplifiers were produced in very small packages with drift etc reduced by orders of magnitude, and at very low cost. The ubiquitous 741 op-amp contains about 20 transistors and is as least as stable as the very expensive discrete operational amplifiers used in the equipment I worked on.

This was about the size and shape of an upright piano and was programmed by sticking 4mm patch leads into the front of the console. There were also made-up blocks with multi pins which could be plugged in produce certain functions. Everything was computed using analogue voltages within the range plus and minus 10 volts DC.

With a resolution of about 1 millivolt this meant that variables could be plotted to 1 part in 10,000. In practice this was seldom achievable.

I think the last two Analogue Computers at the Hallam University were consigned to the scrap-man in the early 1990's.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Before the days of digital computers, but well within the era of the slide rule and well-thumbed log tables, the Analogue Computer was king.

These were extremely expensive and used for high-tech work like aircraft airframe design.

The operating principle was to represent known variables by precise analogue voltages and to use operational amplifiers in complex circuits to add, subtract, multiply, integrate, and divide.

In the early days valves were used as operational amplifiers, but required extremely complex circuitry to reduce thermal drift etc.

With the advent of transistors, and later integrated circuits, operational amplifiers were produced in very small packages with drift etc reduced by orders of magnitude, and at very low cost. The ubiquitous 741 op-amp contains about 20 transistors and is as least as stable as the very expensive discrete operational amplifiers used in the equipment I worked on.

This was about the size and shape of an upright piano and was programmed by sticking 4mm patch leads into the front of the console. There were also made-up blocks with multi pins which could be plugged in produce certain functions. Everything was computed using analogue voltages within the range plus and minus 10 volts DC.

With a resolution of about 1 millivolt this meant that variables could be plotted to 1 part in 10,000. In practice this was seldom achievable.

I think the last two Analogue Computers at the Hallam University were consigned to the scrap-man in the early 1990's.

HD

Although I had a slide rule and log tables to do my O and A level Mathematics (Pure & Applied) and could use them well we always looked upon the girls in the RSA business and commerce courses with some envy as although what they called "mathematics" was little more than just "arithmetic" to us they had the dubious luxury of using a mechanical analgue computing machine. This was a device with sliders to set numbers, gears and wheels and a cranking handle at one end to turn them. These devices must have been the direct descendent of Charles Babbages original differential engine and analytical engine computing devices. Today these machines are hardly ever seen any more and few younger students would know how to work one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Although I had a slide rule and log tables to do my O and A level Mathematics (Pure & Applied) and could use them well we always looked upon the girls in the RSA business and commerce courses with some envy as although what they called "mathematics" was little more than just "arithmetic" to us they had the dubious luxury of using a mechanical analgue computing machine. This was a device with sliders to set numbers, gears and wheels and a cranking handle at one end to turn them. These devices must have been the direct descendent of Charles Babbages original differential engine and analytical engine computing devices. Today these machines are hardly ever seen any more and few younger students would know how to work one.

I have a collegue at work, another science teacher, who is interested in astronomy and space travel. He was born in 1971 so is not exactly a "young 'un" any more. He had been watching the film "Apollo 13" starring Tom Hanks which tells the true story of the near disaster of the 3rd moon landing mission when an oxygen tank blew out about 3/4 way to the moon which had happened a year before his birth in April 1970.

In one scene (which apparently really happened according to an interview with Gene Krantz), the mission controller, Gene Krantz calls a team of flight trajectory engineers around him, explains the current situation on board Apollo and tells them he wants them to calculate an LEM main engine burn time to change the path into a free return trajectory around the moon so that the moons own gravity will turn Apollo around back towards the Earth and a second shorter release burn will then send it safely on its way home. the team stand silently staring at each other until Krantz says "well gentlemen, while we are stood here Apollo is moving away from us at around 4000 mph so we have no time to spare, I expect your answer within the hour" At this point some of them pull a slide rule out of their top shirt pocket while others get out a pencil, notebook and some log tables to do as instructed.

My friend found it both amazing and laughable that they didn't use electronic computers and that they relied upon such primitive methods of computation which at that time school students were also using to pass basic maths qualifications.

At the time Gene Krantz was interviewed other people also had this view that the calculations were done in a very simplistic, primitive way to which Krantz replied "We got them back didn't we? We brought those 3 guys home alive"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a collegue at work, another science teacher, who is interested in astronomy and space travel. He was born in 1971 so is not exactly a "young 'un" any more. He had been watching the film "Apollo 13" starring Tom Hanks which tells the true story of the near disaster of the 3rd moon landing mission when an oxygen tank blew out about 3/4 way to the moon which had happened a year before his birth in April 1970.

In one scene (which apparently really happened according to an interview with Gene Krantz), the mission controller, Gene Krantz calls a team of flight trajectory engineers around him, explains the current situation on board Apollo and tells them he wants them to calculate an LEM main engine burn time to change the path into a free return trajectory around the moon so that the moons own gravity will turn Apollo around back towards the Earth and a second shorter release burn will then send it safely on its way home. the team stand silently staring at each other until Krantz says "well gentlemen, while we are stood here Apollo is moving away from us at around 4000 mph so we have no time to spare, I expect your answer within the hour" At this point some of them pull a slide rule out of their top shirt pocket while others get out a pencil, notebook and some log tables to do as instructed.

My friend found it both amazing and laughable that they didn't use electronic computers and that they relied upon such primitive methods of computation which at that time school students were also using to pass basic maths qualifications.

At the time Gene Krantz was interviewed other people also had this view that the calculations were done in a very simplistic, primitive way to which Krantz replied "We got them back didn't we? We brought those 3 guys home alive"

Mentioning the Apollo mission controller Gene Krantz reminds me of another maths related Apollo story.

Steven Bales was known at mission control as "Guideo" because he was in charge of calculating trajectory and guidance, in short he navigated Apollo and calculated with precision where and when Apollo would be. He was 22 and fresh out of University with first class honours in Maths when he joined the team in the second half of the 1960's just as Apollo was getting under way. In an interview "Guideo" explained his roll. It went something like this.

"When Apollo takes off we have to get it at the right angle, height and speed to go into Earth orbit, then at exactly the right time we have to fire the stage 3 for the TLI (Trans Lunar Injection) to send Apollo to the moon. It takes 3 days to get there and as the moon orbits the Earth it is a moving target, we have to aim for a point in space where the moon will be in 3 days time, not at it. Apollo coasts to the moon, at first Earth gravity slows it down from 25000mph to around 2000mph but then the moons gravity takes over and accelerates it too around 6000mph again, it is going too fast to orbit the moon so we have to retro fire to slow it down to drop into lunar orbit. We have to have a 90 mile high equatorial circular orbit for easy of seperating and later rendevous and docking of the command module and the lunar excursion module (LEM). We have to navigate the LEM down to a soft landing on a selected landing site about the size of a football pitch on the moon. In short we are taking Apollo through a quarter of a million miles of nothing to hit something the size of a football pitch on a moving target."

Guideo goes on to explain the return journey, the precision of the angle of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere (which is critical) and guidance to a splashdown landing in a "Football Pitch" area again, but this time just at some exact co-ordinates in the Pacific Ocean where a waiting US Naval vessel can pick them up.

How did "Guideo" do all these calculations in 1969?

Did he have a powerful digital electronic computer witha state of the art 1968 version of Windows 7?

NO!!!

By his own admission, -

"we did most the calculations on paper and in our heads, to assist us we had slide rules and log books"!! :o

They don't seem to turn out mathematicians of that calibre any more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am using Windows 7 and I like it.

As you say hilldweller it copes with most things really well and has so far proved to be a very reliable system.

It is called Windows 7 because it is the 7th incarnation of the Windows system.

1 Windows 95

Original Windows development from the previous DOS system using FAT filing system, a major breakthrough in its day, very impressive but very quickly restricted by developments in processor speed, memory capacity and newer, better systems e.g DVD and USB

2 Windows 98

A big improvement on 95 allowing for further development but finally restricted by the FAT system (maximum file size = 2GB)and software structure (.dll's everywhere) In it's final 98SE version it is still the best by far of the Windows 9.x versions

3 Windows ME

Last of the Win 95 /98 line with DOS / FAT32 archetecture. It was a rushed out development and was notoriously unreliable and full of bugs and problems that never got patched due to the move towards the NT system.

4 Windows 2000

A new Windows system developed not directly from DOS but from the NT (New Technology) system and using NTFS disc systems (no file size restrictions). A big improvement on Windows ME, which as their names imply came out in the same year.

5 Windows XP

Next development of the Windows 2000 /NT system. Windows XP was excellent and even today, 10 years after its release, 3 years after MicroSoft wanted to abandon it, the XP system remains in use, popular, and is still available on new, cheap, low power laptops.

6 Windows Vista

A rushed off update to XP with lots of pointless, memory hungry, processor heavy "gimmicks" like aerodeck screens. It was also fussy about what software it would install, how and where and what drivers it would use. It is possibly the NT eqivalent of what Windows ME was to the older system. No new computers now have Vista even though it is only 4 years old.

7 Windows 7

The latest most up to date Windows system. It is every bit as good as XP and will probably ultimately replace it, - enjoy!

Let's not forget Windows 3.1

Now that was an Operating System !!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's not forget Windows 3.1

Now that was an Operating System !!!

Yes it was an operating system, it predates Window 95 and also predates the concept of "User Friendly" being based almost entirely on the MS-DOS system.

However, you could load Windows 3.1 onto a computer from 1.44Mb floppy discs!!

Stuart0742 tells me this is how he loaded the first version of Windows 95, but you could not do this with any susequent Windows release. You certainly can't get Windows 7 on floppy disc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember installing 95 from floppies, or rather miserably failing to install it due to a corrupted disk 9 of 21 (or was it 27?). And that was after booting the system with a DOS boot disk!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember installing 95 from floppies, or rather miserably failing to install it due to a corrupted disk 9 of 21 (or was it 27?). And that was after booting the system with a DOS boot disk!

Well, if Windows 95 was on 27 floppies, assuming these were double density discs which were fairly standard at the time with a nominal capacity of 2Mb, but with the file table a usable capacity of 1.44Mb, then that means that the whole Windows 95 operating system was just under 39Mb!! :o

There are individual programs which are much bigger than that now, and the current operating systems will only fit on DVD ROM's, the system backup discs for Windows 7 being 2 or 3 DVD discs.

Stuart tells me his first Windows 95 computer had a CD ROM drive (a new innovation in 1995) and 700Mb hard drive. In other words the entire hard drive could just about hold the contents of a CD if you were to load it to disc, and it would be struggling to do that if the 39Mb of Windows 95 OS was also present on the drive.

We have often contemplated loading Windows 95, which was a brilliant opperating system, onto a modern up to date computer just to see how fast it would run, being a small, simple OS it should be lightening fast on modern processors with loads of memory attatched.

However, there are technical problems and compatibility issues which have prevented us from trying, - no floppy drive on modern computers, discs require FAT 16 formatting, no USB support (not even USB 1.0), expects dial up modem Internet, etc. On top of this, if it did load and run I suppose we would only be able to run Windows 95 compatible programs, eg MicroSoft Office for Windows and very early versions of current software. We may be able to get Windows 95 to run IE5, but could be stuck with IE4 or even IE3 none of which are capable of handling many of todays web pages, especially those like YouTube with video content.

What a pity, these old systems were state of the art in their (not so long ago) day and I am sure they are still more than capable of running simpler tasks even today.

However, the computer industry is based on what they call "progress" but which is actually nothing more that built in calculated obsolescence (look at MicroSofts "product life cycle data" to see what I mean by this) and the pure greed of the software companies who insist on selling you exactly the same thing time and time again with only minor changes between versions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first 95 PC was 95 OSR2 , 20GB- FAT 32, 24MB RAM 4MB Graphics with open GL. DirectX wasn't even included with 95.

Up until then I was running a 640K Amstrad with 20MB hard drive and an Amiga 500 with Ram pack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first 95 PC was 95 OSR2 , 20GB- FAT 32, 24MB RAM 4MB Graphics with open GL. DirectX wasn't even included with 95.

Up until then I was running a 640K Amstrad with 20MB hard drive and an Amiga 500 with Ram pack.

Stuarts was the OSR1 original 1995 release, I think OSR2 came out just before the first release of Windows 98 so did have FAT 32 (rather than FAT 16) disc format and I think it may also have had some limited support for USB (USB 1.0), although full USB support only came with Windows 98SE (USB 1.1).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First edition 11-Jul-1995

Service Pack 1 (update) 31-Dec-1995

OSR2 26-Aug-1996

I'm pretty sure that Stuart had the first edition of Windows 95

I came in to windows at Windows 98SE

Since then we have both used Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7

So we passed on ME and 2000, although I have used Windows 2000 at work.

My personal favourite version is XP, which I still use, and as do many other people but I must admit that I do like the current OS Windows 7 and use that just as much if not more these days.

When they finally succeed in destroying XP with calculated and cunning obsolescence then I will use Windows 7 all the time with no difficulty (until of course they deicide to resign Windows 7 to the same fate!! :angry: )

I don't think hilldweller should have any serious concerns about the new Windows 7 system at all.

Now Windows ME and Windows Vista, - oh dear, - I don't like them at all and both had / have inherent "problems"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I spoke too soon :huh: .

My PC has just tried to update itself with the Service Pack 1 (64bit) and thrown a wobbly.

It refused to install while Firefox was on the premises. Apparently there is no 64 bit version of Firefox officially available. I imported my bookmarks into Internet Explorer 9 and the update installed with no bother. Few more pop-ups and rubbish with I.E. 9 but I can live with that.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

Further to the above I have a vague memory of buying a PC which came with a version of Windows called something like Windows 4. My I. T. department workmates told me to ditch it as it was known to be a "dogs breakfast". It only seemed to be around for a short time and I'm pretty sure that I replaced it with Windows 95.

Does anyone else remember this version which doesn't seem to figure in the official lists, perhaps they'd rather forget it.

HD

My memory is getting worse. It wasn't Windows 4, it was DOS4, also known as DogDos.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I spoke too soon :huh: .

My PC has just tried to update itself with the Service Pack 1 (64bit) and thrown a wobbly.

It refused to install while Firefox was on the premises. Apparently there is no 64 bit version of Firefox officially available. I imported my bookmarks into Internet Explorer 9 and the update installed with no bother. Few more pop-ups and rubbish with I.E. 9 but I can live with that.

HD

I have Windows 7 home premium 64 bit running with service pack 1. I also have FireFox 4, and previously had firefox 3.6, on it, both 32 bit and both ran perfectly.

Firstly, check that Firefox is installed in the right program folder. In the root directory of the C drive in Windows 7 there are 2 program folders.

One is called "programs" and is for 64 bit stuff only, the other is called"programs(x86)" which is for 32 bit stuff and is where Firefox should be.

Secondly, if it is installed in the right foldr I would try uninstalling it and reinstalling it now that the Microsoft service pack updates are running.

It should work, - mine does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...