Microsoft announces "end of life" date for Windows XP

[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by Bill

Win 8 is not very popular, for the kind of reasons you are experiencing. I wonder if BestBuy would consider removing Win 8 and installing a registered copy of Win 7 in its place?

Bill

This is a thought but when we talked with them yesterday about setting up the computer and loading some new software we were buying they just weren't interested. But then from the store reviews the one in Tallahassee we went to doesn't get real good personal service reviews. Maybe a trip to Gainsville is in order.
Better yet maybe the computer guy in Perry can set us up with something, 10 minutes from the house so that would be nice even if one has to pay more. I knew win 8 was going to be a night mare from what our daughter had said but this is worse. The last
MS software that really worked was Dos 6.2.....oh well that is living in the past for sure

[Padgett]

You are not going to get much help from the big box shops. As here, the online forums are where you can really find out what is going on and how to make better. All of the majors have them.

ps Lenovo bought most of IBM's PC business.

[scrubjaysnest]

Not a problem any more, DW spent all morning messing with it. Pages were opening to install stuff including from Toshiba faster then she could close them. Something was blocking partial access to her favorite library. Five other computers and an Android based tablet work fine. Anyways she shut it down and said it goes back on Thursday. It either came with malware or picked it during the setup process where win 8.1 wants you to go on line.

[Padgett]

FYI when it insists on going online to login if you select "Create New Account" then toward the bottom there will be a line in small print that says "Use Local Account". Select that and you can create a local admin account.

(From memory so text may not be exact quotes)

[oldstick]

Originally Posted by Padgett

My first PC was a VAX & played my first compuer game in 1957.

Now that is what I call a PC.

Way, way before the days someone realized they could turn computers into a gigantic marketing/advertising tool.

[Padgett]

11/780 made a good room heater but fingers still remember how to boot a PDP 8.

[oldstick]

Originally Posted by Padgett

11/780 made a good room heater but fingers still remember how to boot a PDP 8.

I used to know the VMS commands pretty well, but probably forgot most of it by now...

We actually have an HP server where I work that is running a Windows based VAX emulator. Perfectly emulates all the old hardware, including disk drives and everything. It runs the original VMS and the applications from 1980s verbatim with no changes whatsoever to the applications software.

[Padgett]

Problem with emulators is that they are usually slow but if you don't care about speed, only issue would be in emulating the "2's compliment" math. Lots easier than EBCDIC. At the heart, all computers really need to do the same things.

Once upon a time I did everything in either machine code, BIOS code, DCL, Fivetran, or ADA including a Mil-Std-1750A emulator on a 11/750.

In the winter of '88 I was inside the beltway designing machine interfaces at an agency when they got hit by the Brain. My VP1600 had a BIOS debugger so I wrote a throwaway program to get rid of the annoyance and next thing I know, that's my job.

Nice thing about this century is that now I can combine my hobbies: computers and cars.

[scrubjaysnest]

Now you guys are really living in the past. The stuff I worked with was more modern; used push buttons to load the 0 & 1 assembly program. The memory was something else too. Four 2x3 foot 16 k core boards and a 90k hard drive that took two of us to lift it. To reboot the sytem if the hard drive was down we used state of the art punched tape; it was Mylar. Now those were the days.

[oldstick]

Originally Posted by scrubjaysnest

Now you guys are really living in the past. The stuff I worked with was more modern; used push buttons to load the 0 & 1 assembly program. The memory was something else too. Four 2x3 foot 16 k core boards and a 90k hard drive that took two of us to lift it. To reboot the sytem if the hard drive was down we used state of the art punched tape; it was Mylar. Now those were the days.

On the contrary, that sounds older than my experience. However, the first programming class I ever had in college (FORTRAN) our assignments had to be done on IBM punch cards, dropped off at the school's business office and picked up the next day to find out how bad we had screwed it up.