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To: sevry
On the other hand, THE ONE THING people point to as Microsoft's advantage is that they rigorously encouraged backward compatibility. The old DOS accounting programs could still be run on XP, they say. So here, Microsoft is abandoning that practice.

Except that I doubt that they are. No support for VB6 just means that you can't telephone them with a programming question -- something I would never do anyway -- and there won't be a VB6 Service Pack 7. Well, you know what? Service Pack 6 wasn't much good, so not having a 7 will be no loss.

We still have some Microsoft Fortran programs running under DOS. And how many years has it been that that one hasn't been supported? Yes, a lot of times it is worth rewriting stuff in abandonned languages into the new stuff, but I never believe in doing it just for the sake of being able to say your whole inventory is "supported."

37 posted on 03/13/2005 7:05:17 PM PST by Steve Eisenberg
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To: Steve Eisenberg
"We still have some Microsoft Fortran programs running under DOS. And how many years has it been that that one hasn't been supported?"

You guys have it good, and don't know it. - When I last did any programming for anything other than a hand calculator, it was IBM Fortran IV and COBOL running on IBM 1130/1800's. For the last 15 years I've had calculators that fit into my shirt pocket that have more horse power than an 1800!

60 posted on 03/13/2005 9:06:39 PM PST by editor-surveyor (The Lord has given us President Bush; let's now turn this nation back to him)
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To: Steve Eisenberg
We still have some Microsoft Fortran programs running under DOS.

Microsoft Fortran? You got that to work? What era, they tryed twice and failed both times.

DEC Fortran under dev studio was sweet though.

66 posted on 03/13/2005 9:41:30 PM PST by Dinsdale
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To: Steve Eisenberg
We still have some Microsoft Fortran programs running under DOS. And how many years has it been that that one hasn't been supported? Yes, a lot of times it is worth rewriting stuff in abandonned languages into the new stuff, but I never believe in doing it just for the sake of being able to say your whole inventory is "supported."

I think that I still have an open case with Microsoft on a problem I was having with their Fortran compiler back in 1986 (I think). Never did get it resolved. I take it things haven't improved much since then.

Mark

74 posted on 03/13/2005 10:31:31 PM PST by MarkL (That which does not kill me, has made the last mistake it will ever make!)
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