why would it kill the blind gaming community? it didn't kill the mainstream, and besides, i believe it would do use better to focus on helping mainstream games get access built in anyways.
dallas

On 13/12/2011 18:38, shaun everiss wrote:
I am also affraid for the community at large.
We will be definately left in the dark after we go fully 64 and especially if and when ms stop 32 bit production.
Xp has always done things ok, and some still say its faster.
I have not found any advantage access wise in win7 or the latest office version. However we still have a chance, all devs need to get off vb fully if they can.
Its a bit of a pitch but we can probably do it.
Bgt will probably be the next platform to write things in.
However, when windows stops vb support, the blind gamers community will probably die.
I still like the old games.
Saying that the dos stuff could probably be converted to windows and the vb6 stuff probably should be put into something that is supported.
Maybe as I say bgt or something.
but yeah, ms are the borg.
What I fear is no one will change or at  least change fast enough.
We still have a large ammount of games relying on old tech, dos games, vb games, free and payed for a like.
In the short term we can buy older systems with xp or buy xp.
However as it gets longer and longer we will find it harder and harder to get things.
At 12:04 p.m. 12/12/2011 +0000, you wrote:
Hi Tom.

I do generally appreciate the point that better applications for doing tasks like brousing the internet or text editing exist, ----- certainly I wouldn't go back to using the old word perfect 4 which i learnt typing on as a teenager.

However with microsoft it seems quite often they just dump things on people with no chance to change and expect the general public to just go along with it.

Take ribbon controls. Back after the change from 95 to xp there was a classic mode, which made elements of the xp ui resemble earlier versions of windows. Do we see this in windows 7 or 8? heck no!

Many fully sighted users hate ribbons and the windows arrow, finding them needlessly confusing, yet does microsoft care? ---- no!

As far as compatibility goes, the case for games seems very different from the case for other software. Each game is to a lesser or greater extent unique, indeed each game may be considdered an art form to the extent that it is! unique.

Companies like Nintendo have recognized this, which is why there is a wii virtual console etc. Microsoft however don't seem to give a dam, despite the fact that windows has probably the largest proportion of independent game developers for any operating system.

If including dependencies in windows isn't possible, why couldn't microsoft create a package, something like a windows orientated dosbox with 16 bit dependencies and vb registrations, expressly for running older games on newer windows.

microsoft however don't care about either the players of indi produced games, or the various indi developers who've worked on them, which is why an open source alternative like dosbox was needed. However this wouldn't be necessary if microsoft gave a dam, but just like with the ribbon controls, microsoft just seem to expect people to upgrade because something is newer.

i'm afraid for myself, ---- and indeed for probably a lot of other computer users, my Pc is of value only based upon what I can do with it, not based upon whether it has the latest technology or flashy displays, ----- indeed I've never bothered upgrading my microsoft word, sinse ms word 2007 which this machine comes with serves me perfectly well.

One of those things is play old games.

Were my snes to actually break, there would be an alternative, namely buying a wii (though sadly it wouldn't work well for me due to access to the silly wii mote menues), however were my xp machine to break, and were vb support dropped, i'd be saying goodbye to lots of games.

I suppose eventually some open source alternative to vb support will appear, maybe a virtual machine option, but how useable that would be for the average skilled user, and how accessible it would be I don't know. Dosbox is afterall completely inaccessible, and the only dosbox applications I have are ones that have been configured to run as windows programs like the Prince of persia totalpack.

Already the Eamon games are unplayable on windows 7 machines without running an apple emulator, which means they are inaccessible as well, I wonder how long it will be before all the games we have now that use vb will go the same way.

Beware the grue!

Dark.

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