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Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet

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  Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-15 11:46 -0700
    Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet dunno <dunno@dunno.dunno> - 2015-09-15 19:39 +0000
      Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-09-15 21:46 +0200
        Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet dunno <dunno@dunno.dunno> - 2015-09-16 01:00 +0000
          Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet Reinhardt Behm <rbehm@hushmail.com> - 2015-09-16 09:19 +0800
            Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-09-15 18:52 -0700
            Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet dunno <dunno@dunno.dunno> - 2015-09-16 02:07 +0000
              Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet Reinhardt Behm <rbehm@hushmail.com> - 2015-09-16 12:44 +0800
                Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-09-16 15:00 -0700
                  Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today-- TopTenzNet "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-16 23:24 +0000
                  Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet Reinhardt Behm <rbehm@hushmail.com> - 2015-09-17 12:53 +0800
                    Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-09-16 22:24 -0700
                      Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-16 23:06 -0700
                        Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-09-16 23:32 -0700
                          Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-17 00:17 -0700
                            Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-09-17 02:19 -0700
                            Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-09-17 10:31 +0000
                      Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet "Rod Pemberton" <boo@fasdfrewar.cdm> - 2015-09-17 07:20 -0400
                  Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet dunno <dunno@dunno.dunno> - 2015-09-17 06:36 +0000
    Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet "Rod Pemberton" <boo@fasdfrewar.cdm> - 2015-09-15 21:50 -0400
      Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet "Rod Pemberton" <boo@fasdfrewar.cdm> - 2015-09-15 22:04 -0400

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#42015 — Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today -- TopTenzNet

Found this on the Toobz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYnsoA91H4o

Last sigting of an XP machine was in the bar at the back
of a Mexican restaurant I like to frequent.  It runs the
till, and probably is not connected to the net, so why
bother upgrade?

Also, I saw an ATM at a donut shop a few weeks ago which
looked like it was built like a safe, and looked a little
strange in so much as I'm not sure it was even running
linux or any version of Windows.  I want to go back to 
take another look.  The machine looked clean so I'm not 
sure how old it was.

Jason

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#42016

Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Found this on the Toobz.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYnsoA91H4o
> 
> Last sigting of an XP machine was in the bar at the back
> of a Mexican restaurant I like to frequent.  It runs the
> till, and probably is not connected to the net, so why
> bother upgrade?
> 
> Also, I saw an ATM at a donut shop a few weeks ago which
> looked like it was built like a safe, and looked a little
> strange in so much as I'm not sure it was even running
> linux or any version of Windows.  I want to go back to 
> take another look.  The machine looked clean so I'm not 
> sure how old it was.

A lot of old ATMs used to run OS/2, even many years after development of
OS/2 stopped. Since ATM is dedicated machine there really is no need for
multitasking OS such as Linux or Windows.

-- 
dunno

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#42017

dunno wrote:
> A lot of old ATMs used to run OS/2, even many years after development of
> OS/2 stopped. Since ATM is dedicated machine there really is no need for
> multitasking OS such as Linux or Windows.

OS/2 is a multitasking OS, and was ahead of Linux and Windows when it was 
hot - in the early 90s, when Linux had a.out and poorly implemented shared 
libraries, and Windows was just on top of DOS.

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
net2o ID: kQusJzA;7*?t=uy@X}1GWr!+0qqp_Cn176t4(dQ*
http://bernd-paysan.de/

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#42022

Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> wrote:
> dunno wrote:
>> A lot of old ATMs used to run OS/2, even many years after development of
>> OS/2 stopped. Since ATM is dedicated machine there really is no need for
>> multitasking OS such as Linux or Windows.
> 
> OS/2 is a multitasking OS, and was ahead of Linux and Windows when it was 
> hot - in the early 90s, when Linux had a.out and poorly implemented shared 
> libraries, and Windows was just on top of DOS.

It was a long time ago, but IIRC, OS/2 was multitasking in a way very
similar to MS-DOS. One can have so called "memory resident" programs
running together under MS-DOS, but there never was good memory management
implementation (otherwise we might still be using DOS on our computers.)

-- 
dunno

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#42024

dunno wrote:

> Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> wrote:
>> dunno wrote:
>>> A lot of old ATMs used to run OS/2, even many years after development of
>>> OS/2 stopped. Since ATM is dedicated machine there really is no need for
>>> multitasking OS such as Linux or Windows.
>> 
>> OS/2 is a multitasking OS, and was ahead of Linux and Windows when it was
>> hot - in the early 90s, when Linux had a.out and poorly implemented
>> shared libraries, and Windows was just on top of DOS.
> 
> It was a long time ago, but IIRC, OS/2 was multitasking in a way very
> similar to MS-DOS. One can have so called "memory resident" programs
> running together under MS-DOS, but there never was good memory management
> implementation (otherwise we might still be using DOS on our computers.)

Your memory fails you. OS/2 was inherently a multitasking kernel. At least 
when the development was taken away from Microsoft and done by IBM 
themselves (starting with OS/2 Warp 3).
You seem to mix this up with how Windows before NT worked. It's so called 
multitasking was not more than a polling loop hidden in the keyboard driver.

I have used OS/2 Warp 3 and 4 for about ten years and developed many control 
systems using its multi-tasking and -threading features before switching to 
Linux as my main system.

-- 
Reinhardt

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#42027

On Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 6:19:55 PM UTC-7, Reinhardt Behm wrote:
> dunno wrote:
> 
> > Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> wrote:
> >> dunno wrote:
> >>> A lot of old ATMs used to run OS/2, even many years after development of
> >>> OS/2 stopped. Since ATM is dedicated machine there really is no need for
> >>> multitasking OS such as Linux or Windows.
> >> 
> >> OS/2 is a multitasking OS, and was ahead of Linux and Windows when it was
> >> hot - in the early 90s, when Linux had a.out and poorly implemented
> >> shared libraries, and Windows was just on top of DOS.
> > 
> > It was a long time ago, but IIRC, OS/2 was multitasking in a way very
> > similar to MS-DOS. One can have so called "memory resident" programs
> > running together under MS-DOS, but there never was good memory management
> > implementation (otherwise we might still be using DOS on our computers.)
> 
> Your memory fails you. OS/2 was inherently a multitasking kernel. At least 
> when the development was taken away from Microsoft and done by IBM 
> themselves (starting with OS/2 Warp 3).
> You seem to mix this up with how Windows before NT worked. It's so called 
> multitasking was not more than a polling loop hidden in the keyboard driver.
> 
> I have used OS/2 Warp 3 and 4 for about ten years and developed many control 
> systems using its multi-tasking and -threading features before switching to 
> Linux as my main system.
> 
> -- 
> Reinhardt

OS/2 had true multi-tasking at a time when Windows was just a big TSR running under MS-DOS --- Windows got to market first, and to heck with quality --- and so Windows became the standard.

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#42029

Reinhardt Behm <rbehm@hushmail.com> wrote:
> dunno wrote:
> 
>> Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> wrote:
>>> dunno wrote:
>>>> A lot of old ATMs used to run OS/2, even many years after development of
>>>> OS/2 stopped. Since ATM is dedicated machine there really is no need for
>>>> multitasking OS such as Linux or Windows.
>>> 
>>> OS/2 is a multitasking OS, and was ahead of Linux and Windows when it was
>>> hot - in the early 90s, when Linux had a.out and poorly implemented
>>> shared libraries, and Windows was just on top of DOS.
>> 
>> It was a long time ago, but IIRC, OS/2 was multitasking in a way very
>> similar to MS-DOS. One can have so called "memory resident" programs
>> running together under MS-DOS, but there never was good memory management
>> implementation (otherwise we might still be using DOS on our computers.)
> 
> Your memory fails you.

Could be; I trust you in this case since I'm not willing to do any research
on the topic. My point was that the ATM in question might be running OS/2
since it was widely used in ATMs back in the days.

> OS/2 was inherently a multitasking kernel. At least 
> when the development was taken away from Microsoft and done by IBM 
> themselves (starting with OS/2 Warp 3).
> You seem to mix this up with how Windows before NT worked. It's so called 
> multitasking was not more than a polling loop hidden in the keyboard driver.
> 
> I have used OS/2 Warp 3 and 4 for about ten years and developed many control 
> systems using its multi-tasking and -threading features before switching to 
> Linux as my main system.



-- 
dunno

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#42030

dunno wrote:

> Could be; I trust you in this case since I'm not willing to do any
> research on the topic. My point was that the ATM in question might be
> running OS/2 since it was widely used in ATMs back in the days.

Not only back in those days. I remember having seen an ATM in Germany last 
year booting to OS/2 Warp 4.
 
-- 
Reinhardt

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#42039

On Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 9:45:00 PM UTC-7, Reinhardt Behm wrote:
> dunno wrote:
> 
> > Could be; I trust you in this case since I'm not willing to do any
> > research on the topic. My point was that the ATM in question might be
> > running OS/2 since it was widely used in ATMs back in the days.
> 
> Not only back in those days. I remember having seen an ATM in Germany last 
> year booting to OS/2 Warp 4.
>  
> -- 
> Reinhardt

OS/2 is one of those sad cases of a superior technology getting lost, while an inferior technology becomes the standard --- people are too focused on having a standard, so they can be standard (woo hoo!), and they care nothing about quality --- in America we are supposedly all rugged individualists who value freedom above all else, but we are mostly just herd animals.

I have a theory about this. Originally in America, there were millions of buffalo on the plains. All of these buffalo were killed off for the purpose denying the aboriginals a way to make a living. So, where did the buffalo go? They couldn't have been reincarnated as buffalo, because there aren't any buffalo now. But, the human population has grown considerably. Where did these people come from? They couldn't have been reincarnated from humans, because the human population was several times smaller in the past. Also, why do so many of the people in America now have a herd mentality, almost as if they had been herd animals in their previous life? I'm just saying --- do the math --- if reincarnation is the way of Earth, then an ascending population of humans implies that most were not human in their previous life.

Getting back to the subject of computers --- why was OS/2 used in ATM machines? 


P.S. Here is a quote from "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" (Dee Brown, pg 265)

"Of the 3,700,000 buffalo destroyed from 1872 through 1874, only 150,000 were killed by Indians. When a group of concerned Texans asked General Sheridan if something should not be done to stop the white hunters' wholesale slaughter, he replied: Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance."

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#42040 — Re: Top 10 Horrible Outdated Technologies That Are Still Used Today-- TopTenzNet

hughaguilar96@gmail.com wrote:


> P.S. Here is a quote from "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" (Dee Brown, pg 265)
> 
> "Of the 3,700,000 buffalo destroyed from 1872 through 1874, only
> 150,000 were killed by Indians. When a group of concerned Texans
> asked General Sheridan if something should not be done to stop
> the white hunters' wholesale slaughter, he replied: Let them
> kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is
> the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to
> advance."


That was from a cultural Marxist source.  This is not:

When there were no more than 400,000 Indians in the entire
territory of the United States, it was much too small for them.
All the tribes, with the exception of some degenerates in part
of California, lived in perpetual warfare with each other for
the sheer joy of it. A war party from one tribe would, if
necessary, travel a great distance through the forests or over
the prairie to attack another tribe. The much touted tribes of
the Iroquois federation in New York (formed c. 1570 to attack
the Whites more effectively) gladly walked to North Carolina to
attack the Cherokee. Kenneth Robert's _Northwest Passage_ has
probably been translated into German; the historical background
is accurate, and the first part of the book describes the
expedition of the rather famous Major Rogers and his Rangers to
end killing and scalping of White settlers on the northern
border of Massachusetts by a band of Abnaki who came from their
village at the mouth of the St. Francis River in Quebec. The
German author should consult his excellent German atlas and look
at a map to estimate the distance the blood-thirsty savages must
have journeyed on foot to assuage their thirst. Except for a
short time within federations formed for bigger raids on other
Indians or the White settlers, there never was any peace between
Indian tribes until they were herded into reservations and kept
there by military surveillance.

-- 
After being told there was no money, the attackers tore off the woman's clothes
and raped her until five others arrived, according to the documents.  The new
arrivals took turns having sex with her and then sodomized her....  At gunpoint,
the assailants forced the mother and son to have sex.
www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/sfl-flpdunbar0822nbaug22-story.html

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#42043

hughaguilar96@gmail.com wrote:

> OS/2 is one of those sad cases of a superior technology getting lost,
> while an inferior technology becomes the standard --- people are too
> focused on having a standard, so they can be standard (woo hoo!), and they
> care nothing about quality --- in America we are supposedly all rugged
> individualists who value freedom above all else, but we are mostly just
> herd animals.
> 
...
> 
> Getting back to the subject of computers --- why was OS/2 used in ATM
> machines?

ATM machines are mostly operated by banks. The banks were used to use and 
rely on IBM equipment in mainframes and still are using it.
Another cause might be that they want an ATM machine work reliably. Would 
anybody have relied on Win 95/98 for such purpose? Possibly spewing out 
endless money because of one of the many OS bugs.

This reminds me of when I was building navigation/moving map systems for 
police helicopters. One pilot asked me why I used Linux and not Windows on 
it. I asked him if he likes the word crash, he immediately understood. :-)

-- 
Reinhardt

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#42046

On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 9:53:23 PM UTC-7, Reinhardt Behm wrote:
> hughaguilar96@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > OS/2 is one of those sad cases of a superior technology getting lost,
> > while an inferior technology becomes the standard --- people are too
> > focused on having a standard, so they can be standard (woo hoo!), and they
> > care nothing about quality --- in America we are supposedly all rugged
> > individualists who value freedom above all else, but we are mostly just
> > herd animals.
> > 
> ...
> > 
> > Getting back to the subject of computers --- why was OS/2 used in ATM
> > machines?
> 
> ATM machines are mostly operated by banks. The banks were used to use and 
> rely on IBM equipment in mainframes and still are using it.
> Another cause might be that they want an ATM machine work reliably. Would 
> anybody have relied on Win 95/98 for such purpose? Possibly spewing out 
> endless money because of one of the many OS bugs.
> 
> This reminds me of when I was building navigation/moving map systems for 
> police helicopters. One pilot asked me why I used Linux and not Windows on 
> it. I asked him if he likes the word crash, he immediately understood. :-)
> 
> -- 
> Reinhardt

I have heard that OS/2 was very reliable. I have a copy of OS/2 Warp, but never really used it enough to have any personal experience. At the time I got it, Windows had already become the standard and there wasn't much point in developing OS/2 software any more.

Windows 95/98 was horrible for crashing. Windows Vista was no good either. I have Windows-7 now, and it seems to be pretty reliable although it is awfully slow, but I have heard that Windows-8 is a step backwards and should be avoided. I tried Linux but found it to be problematic for hooking up to wifi --- I only use Linux for running LaTeX.

I have often heard computer users say that they "hate computers" --- I say: "You mean, you hate Windows." They don't know what I'm talking about, as they don't understand that Windows isn't an integral aspect of computers --- they don't know that there could be anything else.

For the most part, I think that standards cause more harm than good.

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#42047

On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 10:24:08 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
> ...
> I have heard that OS/2 was very reliable. I have a copy of OS/2 Warp, but 
> never really used it enough to have any personal experience. At the time I
> got it, Windows had already become the standard and there wasn't much point
> in developing OS/2 software any more.
> ...

It is.  I use it at work everyday, and it only crashes a couple of times a
 month, on average.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/184816-whats-the-oldest-computer-youve-seen-in-use-today/page-4#entry3087586

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/184816-whats-the-oldest-computer-youve-seen-in-use-today/page-4#entry3134191

Mike B.

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#42048

On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 11:06:36 PM UTC-7, Michael Barry wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 10:24:08 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
> > ...
> > I have heard that OS/2 was very reliable. I have a copy of OS/2 Warp, but 
> > never really used it enough to have any personal experience. At the time I
> > got it, Windows had already become the standard and there wasn't much point
> > in developing OS/2 software any more.
> > ...
> 
> It is.  I use it at work everyday, and it only crashes a couple of times a
>  month, on average.
> 
> http://atariage.com/forums/topic/184816-whats-the-oldest-computer-youve-seen-in-use-today/page-4#entry3087586
> 
> http://atariage.com/forums/topic/184816-whats-the-oldest-computer-youve-seen-in-use-today/page-4#entry3134191
> 
> Mike B.

You use OS/2 at work and it crashes a lot?

Why would an auto-mechanic use anything other than Windows at work? This is for office software, such as bookkeeping?

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#42051

On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 11:32:37 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
> ...
> You use OS/2 at work and it crashes a lot?
> 
> Why would an auto-mechanic use anything other than Windows at work? This is
> for office software, such as bookkeeping?

I wouldn't say a lot.  It is required by regulation to be on or in
 standby mode 24/7, and gets used in a non-climate-controlled shop
 environment over 40 hours a week, 51 weeks a year.  A couple of
 crashes a month should probably be considered better than average
 among its peers.  I am using it to perform loaded-mode emission
 inspections dozens of times a week for nearly 14 years, and its
 peripherals have been connected both physically and electrically
 to some truly messed-up automotive specimens.  I estimate that I
 have performed about 30,000 smog inspections with it, and it does
 that exact job nearly perfectly, so there's no need to replace it.

Mike B.

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#42054

On Thursday, September 17, 2015 at 12:17:47 AM UTC-7, Michael Barry wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 11:32:37 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
> > ...
> > You use OS/2 at work and it crashes a lot?
> > 
> > Why would an auto-mechanic use anything other than Windows at work? This is
> > for office software, such as bookkeeping?
> 
> I wouldn't say a lot.  It is required by regulation to be on or in
>  standby mode 24/7, and gets used in a non-climate-controlled shop
>  environment over 40 hours a week, 51 weeks a year.  A couple of
>  crashes a month should probably be considered better than average
>  among its peers.  I am using it to perform loaded-mode emission
>  inspections dozens of times a week for nearly 14 years, and its
>  peripherals have been connected both physically and electrically
>  to some truly messed-up automotive specimens.  I estimate that I
>  have performed about 30,000 smog inspections with it, and it does
>  that exact job nearly perfectly, so there's no need to replace it.
> 
> Mike B.

Well, for that much use, 2 crashes a month is not bad --- I had thought that it was office software...

I'm glad to hear that OS/2 is still getting some use. :-)

A lot of people want the "optimum" solution --- nothing but the best for them! --- this is why there is a tendency to standardize. This almost always results in problems, sometimes catastrophic. For example, in Ireland everybody was growing the same kind of potato because it was believed to be the optimum kind of potato (best nutritional value, best resistance to disease, best taste, etc.). Then the potato blight hit and the entire country's potato crop got wiped out, resulting in a famine. By comparison, in Peru the people got hit by the same potato blight as Ireland did, but they were growing a wide variety of potato and so only a small percentage were affected. The luckless farmers who got their crop wiped out had to rely on charity to get through, but there were still plenty of people doing well who could afford to help out, so there was little or no starvation --- the next year the farmers who had their crop wiped out replanted with a different variety and they were back in business again.

As another example, I read in a hunting magazine about a guy who went after bear. He set up some bait in a field, then he looked around for the optimum hiding spot for himself. So he goes there, but as he is crawling into position he bumps into something wet with his forehead; when he looks up he sees that it is the bear's nose that he had bumped into. Apparently the bear had also gone to the optimum hiding spot, as bears have pretty much the same criteria for choosing a hiding spot that people do. Both him and the bear were totally surprised! Unfortunately, bears handle surprise better than people do, and the bear swatted him before he thought to fire his rifle. He got mauled but he lived to write his story for the magazine. The bear ate the bait and walked away contented.

The best way to make decisions, is by throwing a die (the "square god"). For example, if choosing between two possibilities, if you think that one choice is twice as good as the other, then go with that choice given a result in the [1,4] range and go with the other choice given a result in the [5,6] range.

For example, Michael could use dice to determine if a customer passes the emissions test or not --- well, maybe that is not the best example --- customers who fail would complain vociferously (although, ironically, customers who pass would not complain). ;-)

If I were the President of the United States, I would roll the dice for all of my important decisions (war/peace, recession/inflation, etc.). In this way, I would be the only President who isn't hated by half the people every time I make a decision, and by all of the people after I have made several decisions --- if people complain, I would respond: "The square god is a fair god!" --- plus, this method of decision-making would leave me with more free time for playing games on the internet. :-D

It is possible to roll two dice and multiply the numbers together for a result in the [1,36] range. This gives more precision. For example, if I wanted to go to war to help out the military-industrial-complex, I could assign a range of numbers to each country on the hit list. Countries that cause a lot of trouble (Russia) would get a big range of numbers, whereas countries that don't cause any trouble (Romania) would get a small range of numbers so there would be less chance of us going to war with them --- that is only fair!

Well, it is past 2:00am --- I'm going to play one more game of go on the internet --- then I really should get to bed.

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#42057

Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> writes:
>On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 11:32:37 PM UTC-7, hughag...@gmail.com wrote:
>> You use OS/2 at work and it crashes a lot?
[...]
>I wouldn't say a lot.  It is required by regulation to be on or in
> standby mode 24/7, and gets used in a non-climate-controlled shop
> environment over 40 hours a week, 51 weeks a year.  A couple of
> crashes a month should probably be considered better than average
> among its peers.

Damning by faint praise?  The machine I am posting this from has an
uptime of 588 days, with currently 4 users logged in.  Downtimes in
our machines are most often caused by (scheduled or unscheduled) power
outages, by system administration work, hardware failures (most
frequently power supplies); OS crashes or hangs are very rare.  This
particular machine is a Xeon with a single-socket server board from
Intel and ECC, but we also have an Athlon 64 X2 box with a Gigabyte
nf-ck804 mainboard (i.e., consumer stuff, not sure about ECC) that
also has 588 days of uptime.

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl  http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
     New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
   EuroForth 2015: http://www.rigwit.co.uk/EuroForth2015/

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#42059

On Thu, 17 Sep 2015 01:24:06 -0400, <hughaguilar96@gmail.com> wrote:

> Windows 95/98 was horrible for crashing.

I use Windows 98/SE for 15 years with six different computers,
of which four machines still work.  It hardly ever crashed.
The one machine was operated basically 24/7 for a decade.
I've had more crashes and glitches on Linux than all those
machines combined.  I've only been using it full time for about
a year now.

As said in another recent c.l.f. thread, Windows 7/8 are very
reliable and almost self-fixing.  However, I have had a few
serious problems with some updates for them.

When it comes to Windows, some people must just be cursed.


Rod Pemberton


-- 
Just how many texting and calendar apps does humanity need?

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#42049

<hughaguilar96@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 15, 2015 at 9:45:00 PM UTC-7, Reinhardt Behm wrote:
>> dunno wrote:
>> 
>>> Could be; I trust you in this case since I'm not willing to do any
>>> research on the topic. My point was that the ATM in question might be
>>> running OS/2 since it was widely used in ATMs back in the days.
>> 
>> Not only back in those days. I remember having seen an ATM in Germany last 
>> year booting to OS/2 Warp 4.
>>  
>> -- 
>> Reinhardt
> 
> OS/2 is one of those sad cases of a superior technology getting lost,
> while an inferior technology becomes the standard --- people are too
> focused on having a standard, so they can be standard (woo hoo!), and
> they care nothing about quality --- in America we are supposedly all
> rugged individualists who value freedom above all else, but we are mostly
> just herd animals.
> 
> I have a theory about this. Originally in America, there were millions of
> buffalo on the plains. All of these buffalo were killed off for the
> purpose denying the aboriginals a way to make a living. So, where did the
> buffalo go? They couldn't have been reincarnated as buffalo, because
> there aren't any buffalo now. But, the human population has grown
> considerably. Where did these people come from? They couldn't have been
> reincarnated from humans, because the human population was several times
> smaller in the past. Also, why do so many of the people in America now
> have a herd mentality, almost as if they had been herd animals in their
> previous life? I'm just saying --- do the math --- if reincarnation is
> the way of Earth, then an ascending population of humans implies that
> most were not human in their previous life.
> 
> Getting back to the subject of computers --- why was OS/2 used in ATM machines? 

IBM was kind of good with selling their systems to banks. They used AS/400
for servers and OS/2 for clients. The AS/400 technology is still being used
today as IBM i operating system, and it's actually not that bad. If I were
writing banking software today I would definitely consider IBM i as an OS.

> P.S. Here is a quote from "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" (Dee Brown, pg 265)
> 
> "Of the 3,700,000 buffalo destroyed from 1872 through 1874, only 150,000
> were killed by Indians. When a group of concerned Texans asked General
> Sheridan if something should not be done to stop the white hunters'
> wholesale slaughter, he replied: Let them kill, skin, and sell until the
> buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and
> allow civilization to advance."


-- 
dunno

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#42026

On Tue, 15 Sep 2015 14:46:30 -0400, Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Found this on the Toobz.
>
> [link]
>
> Last sigting of an XP machine was in the bar at the back
> of a Mexican restaurant I like to frequent.  It runs the
> till, and probably is not connected to the net, so why
> bother upgrade?

s/sigting/sightin/

You're such a tease!  From the subject of your post,
I thought they were going to mention Forth.

Floppy disks are still useful for booting and setting
up OS installs for machines, even for Linux, and
especially for Linux recovery.  Many OSes simply won't
boot from a USB stick or drive.

The chip-and-pin method isn't used anywhere in the U.S.
They're issuing chip-and-pin cards now, but no ATMs or
EFTPOS machines at stores or gas-stations are activated
to use the "new" chip-and-pin cards.

Dial-up is still needed in many rural areas because
fiber, ADSL, and cable-broadband simply aren't available.
The only other option is satellite internet which has
better download speeds, but requires dial-up for
uploading and bi-directional internet protocols.  The
video's announcer basically criticized AOL's dial-up
users for being stupid or ignorant of broadband, but
if someone only needs email access, then dial-up is
much cheaper.  Elderly retiree's and rural people don't
need much from the internet, perhaps email, maybe
Facebook to view grandchildren's pictures, and maybe
a bit of online banking or Amazon.  They aren't
researching stock, reading the N.Y. Times or Wall
Street Journal, watching YouTube, or gaming competitively.

They mentioned telegrams as obsolete, but didn't mention
the over 500 Billion USD remittance industry selling
money-orders and wire transfers.

The one they *really* got wrong though was VHS tapes.
VHS tapes are *much* better for easily recording shows
than DVDs and DVRs, have long record times on EP, and
have high-quality recording on SP tape settings. If you
want to replay a second or two because you couldn't tell
what they said, it's very easy, not like DVD players.
DVDs aren't as responsive and can be sketchy or botch
the recording to the optical disk.  VHS tapes may have a
bad spot with lousy video, but won't fail to record the
rest of the show for a bad track or sector like optical
disks do.  DVRs are unbelievably complicated just to get
them to start recording and require a large amount of
time to copy from their internal HD to a DVD.  The fact
that DVRs have a single button to start recording like
VHS is cruel, sick, and twisted joke.  They don't work
that way.

I'm surprised they didn't mention music CDs which are
still a huge industry in Japan, or vinyl records which
are making a modest comeback worldwide.  I still prefer
CDs since they're so easy to use and CD players are still
everywhere.  Streaming music is convenient, but I find
digital music players to be difficult to use, problematic
to load music, and consume batteries very quickly, etc.


Rod Pemberton

-- 
Just how many texting and calendar apps does humanity need?

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