At 12:31 PM 5/24/06 -0700, Eric Dannewitz wrote: >But WHY do you want or NEED to run 6 year old software on a modern >computer?? >I think that if you buy a program, and use it, and then buy new >hardware, you'd want to update all your programs to take advantage of >the new hardware.
Ah, I see. It's a reasonable question, but there are also reasonable answers. There are a lot of programs -- I really mean a *lot* -- that I use. I don't need new features on them, and I don't want to do a data file conversion. The program I'm using to email this list is a freeware version of Eudora last updated in 1997. It has my email since 1993, some 800MB worth (just text -- excluding attachments). This is a correspondence reference file for me, like a trunk full of letters, and it's important. I've tried newer email programs and they break the mailbox system (or can't handle it). The Opera email came highly recommended, for example. It took 6 hours to convert the mailboxes -- and then couldn't date anything before 2000. The programmers didn't expect it to index mail that old, I suppose. That's just one example. There are a number of DOS utilities and sound modules that I use. Some now have GUIs, others do not. One of my other favorites converts TrueType fonts to Type 1. Last night I was rummaging around for a scheduling program from 1993 because my wife used to use it an liked it, and needs it again. It's a one-task use, and investing another $150 (its price then) isn't cost effective at all. In other words, if a program performs a function as or more effectively than a newer program (faster, no learning to be done, relatively simple task, or cheaper), there is no need to update it. I update high-end programs as features become available that I need. Some go dead for me. For example, when Adobe bought Syntrillium and started changing Cool Edit into Audition, they began bulking it up and turning it into a studio application. They didn't tamper much with version 1.0, but I made the mistake of buying a 2.0 upgrade. It's crashy, tempermental (won't load half the VSTs), buggy, and totally reworks the interface to use more screen real estate for geegaws. I consider the money spent a loss because I continue to use the previous version until I can find another program with as snappy and easy an interface. When Corel bought Paint Shop Pro, the same thing began to happen -- bloat and bugs. There are lots of reasons to retain older versions of software. I just checked -- there are 326 applications and suites on my desktop. A operating system upgrade cycle that requires me either to upgrade or lose access to applications wouldn't make sense to me. Dennis -- Please participate in my latest project: http://maltedmedia.com/waam/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
