There was another one I haven't found on Google yet - it was some sort of mechanical contraption made of plastic.
Posted on 02/02/2008 5:03:38 AM PST by martin_fierro
Ha! No Windows 7 in 2009
Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:25AM EST
Sorry folks, but the news seemed a little too good to be true and the celebrations were a bit premature: Windows 7, Microsoft's follow-up to the overwhelmingly hated Windows Vista, probably won't arrive in 2009 as was previously rumored.
Says Microsoft: Windows 7 has not even begun development, and when it does, it will take three years to finish. The Inquirer is pegging a real release date at 2011... at the earliest. (Which is especially sad, since 2010 was the formerly rumored release date.)
Of course, that would be more in line with Microsoft's more recent, glacial development cycles (remember, it took six years to ship Vista after XP came out).
So what might Microsoft do for the rest of the decade? Some are guessing that 2009 might indeed bring a major OS update, but in the form of a biggish update to Vista. Ed Bott predicts a new IE, a toned-down User Account Control, and more media features for the OS. In other words: Windows Vista Service Pack 2.
As a side note, there's also the possiblity that neither scenario is true: All of these rumors are based on leaked roadmaps and at least one "official statement" about Windows 7, but in my years of dealing with the company, it has categorically chosen to refuse comment on future products, especially on something as distant and critical as a new operating system. The latest news is all based on this blog post at WinVistaClub, and you'll have to judge its veracity for yourself. That said, can I believe it will take five or six years to ship a new version of Windows? You bet.
Why haven’t I experienced these alleged problems?”
You aren’t running proprietary corporate software developed prior to Vista.
You aren’t attempting to use hardware developed prior to Vista.
And you aren’t doing anything processor-intensive-enough to notice the Vista speed slowdown.
(nor would I believe you if you tried to claim otherwise)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nice strawman. I never claimed otherwise. In fact, I said we should just get rid of the older equipment and modernize right in my first post. The hardware is dirt cheap anyway.
I just think these cheap shots at Microsoft are contemptible. The average user (that’s most of us) will have absolutely no difficulty with Vista. If the other software manufacturers don’t want to update their products, that’s their problem. And there is no reason under to sun not to use current hardware. Any four year old machine is obsolete anyway.
What you aren’t comprehending is that American *companies* (not software firms, but brick and mortar sell-you-a-car, make-your-pipe, mill-your-paper companies) have all written in-house software to run their businesses.
Vista can’t run most of that software, even though XP can.
These companies don’t go rewriting their in-house software every time a new OS comes out. That would cost *money* to deliver the same functionality, a very bad use of corporate resources.
Likewise, they aren’t going to replace all of their PC’s every 4 years. Heck, they’ve got to keep the old PC’s around just to run XP and their in-house software, now.
You are living in a different world. For you, it might just be one PC to swap out every 4 years...but to a company, it’s thousands of PC’s and thousands of employees who have to be trained and scores of system administrators who have to deal with the old, and new, and the networking interfacing of old and new PC’s and OS’s...which is to say, the less changed, the better the company runs (for less money and less downtime in swapping out machines, too).
When I was a kid I made a binary calculator (add, multiply, XOR, etc.) using the basic parts (transistors, switches, LEDs, etc.) from Radio Shack. I went by one a few years ago, the first time in over a decade, and I found out they don't carry that kind of stuff anymore. Sad, really.
There was another one I haven't found on Google yet - it was some sort of mechanical contraption made of plastic.
http://www.mindsontoys.com/kits.htm?dc1_main.htm
No kit, just designed by me and my friend. Such a limited calculator isn’t really that complex.
Where we worked they changed out the computers every two or three years. If the software makers don’t want to update their software they deserve to go out of business anyway, just like the buggywhip manufacturers who didn’t move into the modern world. Four years for a PC is plenty of usage anyway. It is functionally obsolete.
I’m *not* referring to software companies.
Instead, I’m talking about what ordinary firms write internally for their own management. Healthsouth. AT&T. Ford. U.S. Steel. Wal-Mart. Embassy Suites. Boeing. Cracker Barrel. DuPont. McDonald’s. Acme Brick. AIG.
Every company in America writes unique software programs that are run inside those firms. That’s called “proprietary software.”
It’ll manage their operations, investments, communications. It will analyze their competition and track their customers.
You don’t buy that software inside Circuit City; you write it yourself.
There’s a Trillion Dollars or more of proprietary business software in use by U.S. companies.
Well, National Cement isn’t going to go rewrite their mixing and shipping software just because MicroSoft changed in Vista what worked in XP. See: “backwards compatibility.”
Nor are those companies going to upgrade hardware just because some wet-behind-the-ears kid thinks that it’s outdated.
Corporate America isn’t going to pay new money for old functionality. That means that new software has to do something new, rather than just rewriting the old software to give the same functionality on a new OS.
I’m fully aware of what you are talking about. I once worked on a project that cost $100 million for junk that could have been handled by off the shelf software. When we got the software it so convoluted and user unfriendly I wanted to smack the developers upside the head because what we insisted on was user friendly software. And we got the opposite.
I don’t know precisely what you use but I’ll bet there is commercial software available that could handle your needs. You need not reinvent the wheel unless you like wasting money.
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