This sort of thread does remind us that tech moves on and what was moaned at and cursed for being so big is now considered a slimline OS as it doesn't use much resources, in a decade we'll be laughing at windows 7 and thinking how the hell did we manage with such a daft operating system
^ Not sure that retro's the right word. It is an old OS though. It seems so long ago when I first switched on that laptop that had XP on.
No, maybe not yet. It might be retro in another 5 years though I turned on my old XP desktop earlier to make sure it was working but I didn't use it. It's still working and I'm amazed that it still is. I was sure it would've snuffed it by now When that one snuffs it I might treat myself to a nice shiny 27" iMac
Yes, it was just as cranky as you may imagine. It was a step up from the installed Windows 95, to ME, and then XP.
Good old Gateway 2000.
Ah yes, Windows ME. There's a reason it was called Mistake Edition Anyone remember the Gateway computer stores? Everything was cow-themed and you could use the computers in there and surf the then newfangled World Wide Web It was kinda like the late 90s equivalent of the Apple Store.
I might boot up my old XP desktop tomorrow just to see if it works and for a bit of retro fun after reading this thread Can't believe I'm calling XP retro, but that's how it feels to me now.
Someone told me the other day that he thought there were probably more XP operated machine in the wold at this moment than all others put together.
Two questions :
Is that true ?
And if it is true how can XP be retro ? ! ?
Someone told me the other day that he thought there were probably more XP operated machine in the wold at this moment than all others put together.
Two questions :
Is that true ?
And if it is true how can XP be retro ? ! ?
I'm not sure, but I read somewhere a few months back that XP still had a slightly <30% market share. That was in the summer. I also know a few people still using it and they're refuseniks. Well XP's retro to me because I haven't used it for a long time and my family are Windows 7/8.1/OSX users now, but maybe it will become retro to the public in about 5-10 years time as old computers die out and people still running it have to upgrade or use an alternative OS.
Yes, it was just as cranky as you may imagine. It was a step up from the installed Windows 95, to ME, and then XP.
I had Windows 98 and 'upgraded' to ME. Now that was 'cranky'. Eventually I switched to Windows 2000 (frustratingly, had to re-install because ME wouldn't upgrade to 2000) instead which did sterling service until I needed XP.
I had Windows 98 and 'upgraded' to ME. Now that was 'cranky'. Eventually I switched to Windows 2000 (frustratingly, had to re-install because ME wouldn't upgrade to 2000) instead which did sterling service until I needed XP.
ME for me was personally alright and did the job fine and i gave it to the gaffers family along with a load of extra ram to upgrade their machine and it seemed to work for them
theres no way you could of done a ME to 2000 upgrade as they're totally different families under the hood so it would of had to be a backup data/overwrite/restore job
Its not the grammar forum is it ? Would of and could of while not grammatically correct are perfectly understandable in the context within which they were written.
Windows 2000 was a good stable OS but it took forever to boot up! You could go and make a cuppa while waiting for it to boot and it would be ready when you came back Brilliant OS though. As for Windows ME... I prefer to pretend that collection of bugs doesn't exist
800Mhz, 128Mb RAM, 40GB drive, Win ME .... throw in a printer and separate scanner and it came to £1700+. It worked well for about 5 years once ME was replaced with Win98SE.
I was just looking in the computing section of my university library (mostly used by those studying IT/computer science, but I thought I'd have a look) and they had books on:
DOS for Dummies
Windows 98 for Dummies
Windows NT: The Next Generation (from 1993!)
Windows NT 4.0 study guide
Tune Up Windows 98
Windows XP
Macintosh-Windows integration (late 90s)
Windows 2000
Access 97
Office 2000/XP
An 8086 programming book from 1985
Red Hat Linux (now defunct I believe)
Mac OS X 10.0/10.1
Norton SystemWorks 5.0
FrontPage 2000
There were also various books of old programming languages and old versions of them. No Windows 7 or 8.x books at all. I can understand not having Vista as the college doesn't support it (because it's crap!) but surely they should have a Windows 7 or 8.x book? Who would be still using DOS or Windows NT 3.51 or 4.0?! I should hope that those studying computer science are studying more modern programming languages and operating systems and not ancient 1980s and 1990s ones that nobody uses any more
I was just looking in the computing section of my university library (mostly used by those studying IT/computer science, but I thought I'd have a look) and they had books on:
DOS for Dummies
Windows 98 for Dummies
Windows NT: The Next Generation (from 1993!)
Windows NT 4.0 study guide
Tune Up Windows 98
Windows XP
Macintosh-Windows integration (late 90s)
Windows 2000
Access 97
Office 2000/XP
An 8086 programming book from 1985
Red Hat Linux (now defunct I believe)
Mac OS X 10.0/10.1
Norton SystemWorks 5.0
FrontPage 2000
There were also various books of old programming languages and old versions of them. No Windows 7 or 8.x books at all. I can understand not having Vista as the college doesn't support it (because it's crap!) but surely they should have a Windows 7 or 8.x book? Who would be still using DOS or Windows NT 3.51 or 4.0?! I should hope that those studying computer science are studying more modern programming languages and operating systems and not ancient 1980s and 1990s ones that nobody uses any more
I recently had a look at our local uni's computing books and there was stuff heading back to the 1970's such as describing multiple database systems for the IBM/360 mainframes i think these days theres so much online information theres less need for the more basic things to be in print
I recently had a look at our local uni's computing books and there was stuff heading back to the 1970's such as describing multiple database systems for the IBM/360 mainframes i think these days theres so much online information theres less need for the more basic things to be in print
That goes back even further I guess they have to keep a range of books on programing languages and stuff for people doing computer science but the old operating system and software ones are crazy! There's still enough books on more modern OSes around though. My dad has a book on Windows 8.1 and two on Windows 7. Whenever he learns a new OS he prefers buying a book to looking online. I guess it's just easier.
Time for me to fess up and admit that I'm an XP user.
It works fine for my purposes and is fast enough.
There again I only replaced the CRT TV last year...
Comments
Still not blazing fast though. HDD companies were basically just trying to squeeze as much performance as they could out of it.
My first computer to run XP managed...just...on 128mb ram and a Pentium MMX 200Mhz. By then it had been "upgraded" to a whopping 20GB hard drive.
Bloody hell! A 200Mhz processor and 128MBs of RAM? I bet that ran well.
No, maybe not yet. It might be retro in another 5 years though
Yes, it was just as cranky as you may imagine. It was a step up from the installed Windows 95, to ME, and then XP.
Good old Gateway 2000.
Even my phone has 768MB RAM! I bought my XP desktop in early 2003 and half a gig of RAM was considered high end then.
Ah yes, Windows ME. There's a reason it was called Mistake Edition
Someone told me the other day that he thought there were probably more XP operated machine in the wold at this moment than all others put together.
Two questions :
Is that true ?
And if it is true how can XP be retro ? ! ?
I'm not sure, but I read somewhere a few months back that XP still had a slightly <30% market share. That was in the summer. I also know a few people still using it and they're refuseniks. Well XP's retro to me because I haven't used it for a long time and my family are Windows 7/8.1/OSX users now, but maybe it will become retro to the public in about 5-10 years time as old computers die out and people still running it have to upgrade or use an alternative OS.
Windows 8.1 : 10.95%
Windows 7 : 50.34%
Windows XP : 10.69%
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/02/windows_8_1_breaks_10_per_cent/
I had Windows 98 and 'upgraded' to ME. Now that was 'cranky'. Eventually I switched to Windows 2000 (frustratingly, had to re-install because ME wouldn't upgrade to 2000) instead which did sterling service until I needed XP.
ME for me was personally alright and did the job fine and i gave it to the gaffers family along with a load of extra ram to upgrade their machine and it seemed to work for them
theres no way you could of done a ME to 2000 upgrade as they're totally different families under the hood so it would of had to be a backup data/overwrite/restore job
would have, could have
I've seen far far worse on here.
Mine had a 100Mhz processor, 16MBs of RAM and a 1 gig hard drive. The swop file was busy
Oh, and cost me over £2k as I recall
Edit.. Memory not what it was, that was windows 95...
DOS for Dummies
Windows 98 for Dummies
Windows NT: The Next Generation (from 1993!)
Windows NT 4.0 study guide
Tune Up Windows 98
Windows XP
Macintosh-Windows integration (late 90s)
Windows 2000
Access 97
Office 2000/XP
An 8086 programming book from 1985
Red Hat Linux (now defunct I believe)
Mac OS X 10.0/10.1
Norton SystemWorks 5.0
FrontPage 2000
There were also various books of old programming languages and old versions of them. No Windows 7 or 8.x books at all. I can understand not having Vista as the college doesn't support it (because it's crap!) but surely they should have a Windows 7 or 8.x book? Who would be still using DOS or Windows NT 3.51 or 4.0?!
I recently had a look at our local uni's computing books and there was stuff heading back to the 1970's such as describing multiple database systems for the IBM/360 mainframes
That goes back even further
It works fine for my purposes and is fast enough.
There again I only replaced the CRT TV last year...