• Keybounce (unregistered) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    Keybounce:
    As long as you're locating old computer ads, do you think you can find Microsoft's old ads for Microsoft Windows saying that programs written for microsoft windows will have future compatibility regardless of what else happens?

    I'd love to see if someone could hit them for violating implied warranties.

    I don't know, there're a lot of things you can say about Microsoft, but this one is actually pretty true. Most Windows apps from back in the day, if they were coded reasonably decently, still run at least on XP, often even Vista. It's a big part of why the OS sucks donkey balls, but it's true.

    Try the same with most other OSes and you'll either find that they don't exist anymore or that they ditched compatibility with legacy apps in favour of progress.

    Except for the whole "Lets break major compatibility when windows 95 comes out, forcing people to upgrade to new verisons that, surprise, surprise, won't run on Warp. That will kill off our OS competition, even though not only will 98%+ of programs run perfectly with full modern compatibility and function, but the tiny few ones that won't can have that compatibity mode" issue.

    The issue is the fact that 16 bit file dialogs -- open and save -- do not gain the whole "Your programs continue to work as new functionality is added". These not only did not gain the ability to see long file names, but in fact see many duplicates (differing only in the number after the twiddle) in the released OS files -- the media folder was the perfect example, especially after installing plus.

    Yes, the file name returned to the program had to be the short, twiddled file name. But the whole "what is displayed to the user" was only 'not updated as the system changed' to hurt programs that could run on competing OS's. Notice that even if you could open a file with a long name, you could not create/save a file with a long name -- ergo, the old programs did not have the full ability of the OS as it improved.

    And if I'm crazy, why then did Microsoft pay IBM to settle out of court, but not provide anything to the end users who were just as hurt as IBM was?

    And don't get me started on driver compatibility. XP broke one set of drivers (compared to NT), vista broke almost all of the rest.

  • BillyBob (unregistered)

    Does UNlock have copy protection I wonder?

  • m0ffx (unregistered) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    Try the same with most other OSes and you'll either find that they don't exist anymore or that they ditched compatibility with legacy apps in favour of progress.

    z/OS

  • 50% Opacity (unregistered) in reply to Keybounce
    Keybounce:
    50% Opacity:
    Keybounce:
    As long as you're locating old computer ads, do you think you can find Microsoft's old ads for Microsoft Windows saying that programs written for microsoft windows will have future compatibility regardless of what else happens?

    I'd love to see if someone could hit them for violating implied warranties.

    I don't know, there're a lot of things you can say about Microsoft, but this one is actually pretty true. Most Windows apps from back in the day, if they were coded reasonably decently, still run at least on XP, often even Vista. It's a big part of why the OS sucks donkey balls, but it's true.

    Try the same with most other OSes and you'll either find that they don't exist anymore or that they ditched compatibility with legacy apps in favour of progress.

    Except for the whole "Lets break major compatibility BLAH BLAH INCOHERENT RAMBLINGS BLAH...

    Future compatibility is a pipe dream anyway, you can't code for features that don't exist yet. If you ever believed that, implied or not, welcome to reality. So understanding "future compatibility" as "will keep running in future versions, regardless of what we're doing", it holds true.

    The 8.3 vs. longname dialogs nitpicking is just that, nitpicking. The fact is, the application continues to work after the introduction of a mayor new feature (long file names). With the UI you have two choices: Display two different names inside the application (long in file dialogs, short within the rest of the app) or keep it consistent within the app. They chose the latter option.

    If you are saying they advertised that the user experience will always be up-to-date, then [citation needed] and [above paragraph might need clean-up].

    Keybounce:
    ...that programs written for microsoft windows...
    Keybounce:
    And don't get me started on driver compatibility...

    (emphasis added)

    I like to harp on Microsoft as much as the next guy, but unless you have something more concrete and coherent to go on, you sound just like the crazy uncle who likes to complain about nothing.

  • 50% Opacity (unregistered) in reply to m0ffx
    m0ffx:
    50% Opacity:
    Try the same with most other OSes and you'll either find that they don't exist anymore or that they ditched compatibility with legacy apps in favour of progress.

    z/OS

    (emphasis added)

  • Kef Schecter (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that somebody would want to bother with unprotecting a copy of a COBOL compiler.

  • Unregistered Coward (unregistered) in reply to Nathan
    Nathan:
    I need big fonts emphasizing numbers in improper metrics due to their choice of capitalizing all letters.

    Frankly, Scarlet, nobody gives a damn.

  • London Developer (unregistered) in reply to Kef Schecter
    Kef Schecter:
    Anonymous:
    Ah, those were the days, when copy protections were nothing more than a 5 minute inconvenience.

    Until you lost the game's manual. Then you were fucked.

    Hahahahaha! I remember that! I had lots of photocopied pages of the LHX (a heli sim) manual... Quite often it'd ask me for word 43 paragrah 4 of page 26... oh bollocks! Not page 26, I don't have that page... better press ctrl+c and run lhx again!

    Ohhhh fun days!! Thing is, now it's nowhere near as fun as that... I wonder if that's coz I'm older now???

    Oooh captcha = nobis? Sounds a bit like nob to me!hahaha!

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to London Developer
    London Developer:
    Hahahahaha! I remember that! I had lots of photocopied pages of the LHX (a heli sim) manual... Quite often it'd ask me for word 43 paragrah 4 of page 26... oh bollocks! Not page 26, I don't have that page... better press ctrl+c and run lhx again!

    Ohhhh fun days!! Thing is, now it's nowhere near as fun as that... I wonder if that's coz I'm older now???

    Oooh captcha = nobis? Sounds a bit like nob to me!hahaha!

    At least you could photocopy the LHX manual. I remember a common trick was to print the instruction manual with black text on black paper. Oh no, photocopier copy protection! Generally, though, to print black on black the text had to be slightly embossed. So all you needed to do was grab a piece of charcoal and make a rubbing! Fond memories!

  • Fuzzypig (unregistered)

    Ah the old days, when Checkpoint Software blatently sold CopyIIPC software and hardware to allow copy-protected floppies to be "backed-up", it also allowed you to read Mac formatted floppies, but that was probably put in to allow it to remain barely legal! !

  • Brandon M (unregistered)

    Pournelle's quote from BYTE isn't exactly a glowing review of the product... it's simply a description. They really couldn't find anything positive to fill that space with?

  • BEF (unregistered) in reply to Zach Bora

    They protect the demo with securom to make cracking harder. (So you can't compare .exe files, etc.)

    Doesn't make it any less stupid.

    Captcha: odio yo odio DRM

  • Laie Techie (unregistered)

    Two pages of comments, and not one mention of This isn't the robot you are looking for???

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    If you were Dan Aykroyd, would you spell your name properly on your business card?

  • (cs) in reply to CynicalTyler

    edit

  • (cs) in reply to CynicalTyler
    CynicalTyler:
    Mystify:
    I like the quote in the first article. "Cleverly written code is, by definition tight, recursive, and terribly complex" Cleverly written code is simple and elegant.
    No, well-written code is simple and elegant. Cleverness is something altogether different and more dangerous.

    Here, here!

  • zerocon (unregistered) in reply to Otac0n
    Otac0n:
    CynicalTyler:
    Mystify:
    I like the quote in the first article. "Cleverly written code is, by definition tight, recursive, and terribly complex" Cleverly written code is simple and elegant.
    No, well-written code is simple and elegant. Cleverness is something altogether different and more dangerous.

    Here, here!

    There, there!

  • Daniel (unregistered)

    Actually, there were plenty functional reasons o unlock protected software.

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