Outdated Computer Terms

[Excavatoree]

Could be worse, you could be writing code in Notepad. Or writing a novel.

Or writing Pascal programs using VI.  (1990, University's Unix system)

[SeanB]

I repurposed a lot of network coax for CCTV use, as it was already installed and still good and ran throughout the building. I turned off a Netware 3.12 server last year late after looking and seeing I was the only login for more than 2 years. Still have the whole 2G drive ( actually a crippled 10G Seagate) around just in case. Also a backup of the data somewhere on the other server and a file system copy on a DVD. I did delete the backups in the microwave before tossing them out, took about an hour of place 5 disks in oven, close door, press button and watch the show for 10 seconds, open door take out 5 smoking plastic crispies and drop in bin. Rinse and repeat until done.

[mrflibble]

What, no thermite?

[deephaven]

FLEX
+++

[Galenbo]

Beta versions of software don't exist anymore.

It seems beta is called X.0 now, like Windows 8.0

[uwezi]

Beta versions of software don't exist anymore.

That's not completely true: I spent last Sunday's afternoon installing and deleting Atmel's Studio 6.2beta - just to revert to the released 6.1 again.

...and when it comes to Windows: the beta versions are the ones with the even numbers: 98, 6 (aka Vista), 8, ...

[iceisfun]

SoftICE

[madires]

Desktop computer.

Are you running PCB layout software on a tablet or a smart phone?

[senso]

Nah, today it is either called facebook thingy, laptop, netbook, pc seems very common.

[echen1024]

Desktop computer.

Are you running PCB layout software on a tablet or a smart phone?

[Galenbo]

...and when it comes to Windows: the beta versions are the ones with the even numbers: 98, 6 (aka Vista), 8, ...

:-)

[T3sl4co1l]

Could be worse, you could be writing code in Notepad. Or writing a novel.

I regularly write HTML in Notepad, and assembly on occasion.

Real documents, I write in LaTeX   (Which might be considered 'outdated' as well, given its origins?)

Tim

[madires]

Beta versions of software don't exist anymore.

The first version sold to customers is called Beta ;-)

...and when it comes to Windows: the beta versions are the ones with the even numbers: 98, 6 (aka Vista), 8, ...

Windows 2000 was quite good actually, also 98SE.

[Galenbo]

But for the usual mr/mrs blobby out there the desktop PC is a thing of the past I think these days.

Makers still use a desktop PC, like before. (internet site maker, photoshop maker, PCB maker, 3D file maker, embedded program maker,...)

Users/Consumers use tablet/smartphone, but it is false to say they don't use desktops anymore. They never did. They never would. They said they would never use a PC. And they were right. They use the screen of a mini portable PC to look at their friend's pictures of children, dogs and cats.

[T3sl4co1l]

Windows 2000 was quite good actually, also 98SE.

I never used 2k much, but I understand it was based on NT, sort of a proto-XP, so there's that at least.

I never had much trouble with 98SE -- it was back in the days when, system startup time doesn't take long, so, you shut down every night when going to bed, and boot it in the morning.  Most days, you wouldn't even get a BSoD.  If you happened to leave it running for a few days, well, that's your problem.  I think the most unstable software I had was Adobe Reader 5 (amirite?).

But others have had notorious trouble with 98SE.  Probably as much due to hardware differences (and buggy drivers) as operator error.  Which is still the case today; not much can BSoD an XP+ system, besides drivers.

Tim

[SeanB]

98 was stable for at least a month, provided you did not do stupid things like connect it to the internet...........

for that I was using RH6.0 on an old computer deemed too slow ( 133MHz Pentium) and it would run for months. Still in use running Win98 and an old depreciated ( but not going to be replaced until the hardware it controls dies, which looks like it will be never) vertical app. Note to self, must check tomorrow if it is still running, time to prune the data so the disk does not get full. Still paying for the $#!^^* dongle every month.

[VK3DRB]

Here is an outdated computer term and outdated company...

IBM's Backup Utility.

The biggest load if ill conceived crap ever invented in the computing industry.

It was an IBM DOS utility to back up your hard drive files spanning over a number of diskettes. It was the only way to back up you hard disk when you could not afford a tape drive and you had files bigger than 1.44MB. So you think you could restore the files when you updated your DOS to a newer version? NO! As you tried to restore the files, you would get an "Incorrect DOS version" error, meaning you could only restore onto the same version of DOS.  Bloody morons.
This would have to be one of the most stupid, useless products ever invented. The idiot who architected the software should have been garotted so he could not contribute to the gene pool. No wonder IBM lost the operating system business when they hired dropkicks like those who created the IBM Backup Utility.

[VK3DRB]

Here is another outdated computer term...

IBM's Deskstar Hard Disk. (IBM Death Star)

Their 20 GB hard disk had close to 100% failure rate within the first 2 years. It was so utterly bad they created the the IBM's Disk Health Check Utility program you had to run to see if it was dying. The results of this were:

No-one wanted to buy IBM hard disks any more and most computer stores refused to stock them.
IBM has to abandon its hard disk business, so it sold the remnants to Hitachi.
Many people lost valuable data because of this piece of monumental crap.
IBM created a Hard Disk Health Check Utility that basically checked if your hard disk was about to die.
The hard disk was nicknamed the Death Star in the industry.
A class action against IBM ensued and the courts found IBM had misled its customers about the reliability of the drives.
IBM refunded US $100 to every US victim of its crappy hard disk, but in other countries IBM had abandoned it's Deskstar customers.

I think you will find Dave's $7.50 video record better design and build quality than the notorious IBM Deathstar.

Personally, I have used Seagate ever since. They know a lot more than IBM about hard disk technology and quality manufacturing than IBM.

[T3sl4co1l]

Speaking of Seagate and outdated terms, y'all remember the HD controller cards of yesteryear?

Today's drives have more brains than those old computers were to begin with, not even counting the gigs of bandwidth, automatic sector remapping, and megs of onboard cache.

Tim

[Towger]

IBM's Deskstar Hard Disk. (IBM Death Star)

The Death Star was rated to run down to 10C (Degrees Celsius). I had a 10GB in what was at the time a state of the art PC.  When the temperature got to 9C it would give a 'General failure reading drive C:' error when windows booted and I would have to wait a new minutes for it to warm up before rebooting... 

[sync]

Personally, I have used Seagate ever since. They know a lot more than IBM about hard disk technology and quality manufacturing than IBM.

Depends. For example the IBM DCHS was a good, reliable drive. They even worked for years without cooling and getting too hot to touch. Whereas a lot of Seagate Barracuda SCSI disks from that time died within a few years. But the Death Stars were probably the worst things in hard disk history.

[SeanB]

I have 2 SCSI Deathstars. They were well used when I got them ( they were in a Phillip's server) and I used them for years afterwards. Eventually one did die, but the other still runs. I used the one that did die as a swap partition, and it did get thrashed a lot.

[sync]

The Deathstars were IDE disks, not SCSI.

[JoeN]

Forgot about a lot of that. DESQview, QEMM386, 4DOS, Helix Netroom...

I used all this stuff.  Loved 4DOS.  Some out oldies but goodies:  Procomm Plus, Multi-Edit, Turbo Pascal (especially with B-Tree Filer!)

[Psi]

Here is another outdated computer term...

IBM's Deskstar Hard Disk. (IBM Death Star)

Their 20 GB hard disk had close to 100% failure rate within the first 2 years. It was so utterly bad they created the the IBM's Disk Health Check Utility program you had to run to see if it was dying. The results of this were:

About equal in reliability as Quantum Fireball and Quantum Bigfoot drives.