Hello Christopher,
Nick Sabalausky wrote:
"Yigal Chripun" <yigal...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:gj6e3m$1il...@digitalmars.com...
two things:
a) current hardware is 64bit (if you go and buy a PC),
Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs
the question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need
it to do perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow
anyone to shame me into buying a new system just by calling my
*current* system "legacy", that leaves no real reason for me to buy a
new one.
I tried that. But these days, it's *really* hard to find AT hard
drives to replace the ones that fail.
Hmm... you just reminded me of one of the big reasons I was motivated to
upgrade my computers. It wasn't always about an insatiable desire for bigger,
better, faster. I really disliked the whole "legacy" support engineered
into the PC hardware -- it made things a horrible pain to fix and troubleshoot.
The PC hardware had to be consistantly designed for legacy 16-bit support
because DOS/win95/win98 still had a strong hold on things. Wishful thinking
dictated that upgrading to the next thing would make things that much better
and easier to fix/upgrade. To some extent this may have been true. USB
saved us from endless dip switches and jumper changing (DMA/IRQ setup of
COM/PARALLEL/Network ports were horrible -- remember the conflicts?) and
improved the idea of hot-plugging. SATA drives eliminated setting drives
to master/slave and figuring out which drive went where on PATA IDE channels.
CMOS settings got better and more comprehensive. Hardware got more integrated
reducing the need for expansion cards.
So, I'll have to admit that the so-called "craze" to move on from Legacy
systems in not really as bad as it sounds. Legacy systems were really quite
horrid to use and setup for many years. So much of the advantage of modern
system is reduced complexity in terms of upgrades and maintenance. There
were certainly advantages to be had the more removed one advanced from the
legacy hardware.
I may have actually reached a point where my motivation to upgrade was significantly
dampened by the fact that PC's technology had finally progressed to a more
acceptable usability/maintenance levels. Improvements in technology seem
to be less about usability now and more about power and performance. Perhaps,
we've just finally managed to shake all those legacy trappings that were
hampering us for so long.
-JJR
