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Why a Linux User Is Using Windows 3.1
colinneagle writes "About two weeks back, I was using my Android tablet and looking for a good graphics editor. I wanted something with layers and good text drawing tools. That's when it hit me. We already have that. Photoshop used to run on Windows 3.1. And Windows 3.1 runs great under both DOSBox and QEMU, both of which are Open Source emulators available for Android and every other platform under the sun. So I promptly set to work digging up an old copy of Photoshop. The last version released for Windows 3.1 was back in 1996. And finding a working copy proved to be...challenging. Luckily, the good folks at Adobe dug around in their vaults and managed to get me up and running. And, after a bit of tweaking, I ended up with an astoundingly functional copy of Photoshop that I can now run on absolutely every device I own. And the entire environment (fonts, working files and all) are automatically backed up to the cloud and synced between systems. But what other applications (and, potentially, games) does this give me access to? How far can I take this?"
TERMINAL APPLICATION ERROR
I use tons of "old" software every day. I use a copy of Paint Shop Pro from the 90's. I use DVD Shrink from about a decade ago. Windows XP still runs my entire business. It doesn't wear out. Congratulations to one more person for realizing that they don't have to have the latest and greatest software to be productive.
I don't respond to AC's.
going to set this up myself, and run a sweet NES emulator on it. All the kids will be jealous when I'm playing Paperboy and they are flicking some dumb bird at a pile of boxes...
http://www.emulationzone.org/aboutus/archive/nes2.htm
Not very far.
So that's your solution? Buy a Surface Pro? He already has a tablet and used it to meet his needs by spending $0.
Try to setup and use OS/2 Warp 3.0.
THE BEST environment to run Win16 and Win32s Applications I ever had.
This beast used to run CorelDraw WITHOUT A SINGLE CRASH for hours. Honest.
(I still have my very own original Box, witth the CDs and the instructions about how to use GOPHER to fetch that fantastic Nescape 3.0 for OS/2!)
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
According to this, anyway...
So I don't see the point of Windows 3.1 on an Android device.
The answers to your questions are answered in the summary in part, and in the article in full. Perhaps you could try reading either or both?
Anyway, he's a tech writer, so I assume it would be easier for him to call up Adobe and say, "Hey, I'm working on this hilarious project, do you happen to have..." This probably would not work for you and me. Plus, he's not a FOSS luddite, he has written several articles on using old software. The first paragraph of one about DOS:
Every now and then a new piece of hardware, or software, is released that causes me to pause and think, "Why, on Earth, do we update our tech so often? What, exactly, can I do with the latest stuff that wasn’t possible with the previous version?"
So that should answer that question.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
I've done it before for the LULZ It runs everywhere!
Think of the possibilities!!
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
So you now have layers, but several other limitations in return. Good for you!
I don't mean to rain on the geek parade, but both The Gimp and modern Photoshop runs natively and smoothly on my x86 based Windows 8 tablet.
Whether Windows 8 makes for a better tablet UI than a cross-arch emulated Windows 3.1 with twenty year old software is another discussion.
How far can you take this? You have already gone too far! The only exception I can think of is if your are a dev working on DOSBox or QEMU and want to dogfood or stress test.
I'd rather see a discussion of getting a recent model eprom programmer running under linux under ... something. .de (?) selling something like a bat-something BX-32 or whatever with linux software, but shipping from .de was something like 50% of the cost of the device (serious WTF time, seeing as I'm imported stuff from .cn seeed studios for a fraction of that). Also don't bother me with claims I should just pay $15K for a commercial model, I'm looking to drop $200 or less.
Something like the mcumall usb model. I'm not interested in the 1980s willem designs which require a real old fashioned parallel printer port (I haven't had one of those in many years). I know there's a place in
So... USB pass thru... Everything I read about WINE and USB says "run, run away fast". Virtualbox only does it if you install the most recent version from the upstream rather than using packaged versions.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You'd rather run a 1996 version of Photoshop inside Windows 3.1 inside an emulator than learn how to use Gimp?
That's just... sad.
Two great DOS games for which I haven't found suitable Android clones. Both running on my Nexus 7 through DOSBOX.
Seems to do what's needed.
On a related note, has someone combined x86 emulation and WinE into a single package for Andro?
Why is colinneagle so important that Adobe was willing to dig up 17 year old software for him to help out on something that is impractical and only has a "Gee whiz" factor going for it? I'm hardly an Adobe expert, but my limited experience is that like any normal software vendor they are trying to get people on the latest and greatest, not make stuff from 17 years ago still work. I guess it's fantastic for him that this works, but given how hard it would be for John Q. Public to find Windows 3.1 and probably also to find an ancient copy of Photoshop, this is starting to sound like a bit of a taunt on how he was able to do something that almost nobody else will be able to do.
What is it with all you free market anti-nerds?? Your solution isn't "use your brain to hack out a solution," It's "SPEND MONEY! WE LOVE MONEY! WE WORSHIP MONEY!"
I'm annoyed at this stupid attitude. Did you get here by mistake, thinking it was Forbes or Business Week? We're nerds. We don't buy solutions, we create them. My hat is off to the guy you're putting down, a creative solution to a problem. If your answer to problems is always "pull out the credit card" you are at the wrong site.
Free Martian Whores!
what about warp4? Warp has some VM issues.
What, exactly, can I do with the latest stuff that wasn’t possible with the previous version?
For one thing, you can continue to use it after the hardware compatible with the previous version has failed. I've been told that a lot of new laptops sold with Windows 8 have Wi-Fi chips with no Windows 7 driver.
For another, you can exchange documents with users of later versions. After a particular version of a program reaches its announced end of life, the program's publisher stops making plug-ins to read the latest version's file format. (Some publishers don't release such plug-ins at all.) Try opening a modern PSD in the old Photoshop for Windows 3.1 and see what error message doesn't pop up.
For another, you can continue to use supported software on the public Internet even after a researcher has discovered security vulnerabilities because supported software gets patched.
I'm dreading my current Mac being replaced w/ one which won't be able to run Mac OS X 10.6, so that I'll have to give up Rosetta and Macromedia FreeHand MX --- rather than running Windows in Parallels and FreeHand MX in that, I've been contemplating back-saving all my files to FreeHand v4, then installing NeXTstep (or OPENSTEP) into VirtualBox and Altsys Virtuoso 2 into that.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
You'd save a lot of battery life if you ran that on a desktop / server and VNCed into it over a VPN.
You'd also have to buy a data plan if you plan to do so from a vehicle. The advantage of native apps is that they don't require a cellular data plan, which is still expensive in North America. Besides, I wonder whether the power cost of keeping your device's radio turned on would make up for any saved CPU power through running applications remotely.
We're nerds. We don't buy solutions, we create them.
Absolutely true for nerds. But some of us are geeks. We'll buy stuff if it's the best solution given the requirements (sometimes with extreme prejudice).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Exactly. I'm pretty sure you can find a native Android application that beats a completely antiquated version of Photoshop.
Seriously. You cant create on (todays) tablets. They are for consuming.
If he wanted to do graphics fingering, he should just install PicSay Pro on his Android.
This story just proves how people forget to zoom out and look at whats really the problem. (answer: thats gravity)
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Using proprietary software in a vitrualized proprietary OS on a fork of Linux...
WHOOSH
So that's your solution? Buy a Surface Pro? He already has a tablet and used it to meet his needs by spending $0.
Last I checked, neither Windows 3.1 or Photoshop are free.
*nod* Adobe could probably really capitalize on this if they went back to their old versions and produced a 'PS-Lite' that kept only a subset of the most popular features.
Once you have Windows 3.1 loaded and functioning properly in DOSBox, you can run pretty much any 16 bit game you can find. You might need to install certain drivers to get some games to display properly which this guide covers nicely. Ideally, you'd be running the 16 bit game in straight DOSBox first. If it asks for a Windows installation, then boot up 3.1 first and execute it via file manager. There are entire repositories of Abandonware if you do a little Googling around, so you are literally opening yourself up to being able to play thousands of games you wouldn't otherwise be able to. One video game that is legally being distributed is Elder Scrolls II, though I don't believe you need Windows 3.1 for that. I've also heard of people running Microsoft Works for Windows using this method, but it's kind of redundant when you have Open Office and Libre Office floating around. Windows 3.1 and DOSBox is really a compatibility thing, so you can take it to whatever your needs are.
Daily read for tech news: Freezenet.ca
Probably. But that's not as fun. Or as nerdy.
The point of this whole exercise wasn't simplicity of function, it was to do something weird and see if it worked.
Everyone complains about Gimp... and then does fuck-all to help improve it. I guess writing actual code can't compare to their halcyon student days of bootlegging Photoshop.
You don't know the first thing about what you speak. The versions of Photoshop from the 3.1 era are lightyears ahead of the most modern version of MS Paint. That you have it so backwards and yet talk about the value of time is humorous to say the least.
Even Paint Shop Pro, which was Photoshop's much cheaper cousin in the Win 3.1 days is far superior to the most modern version of MS Paint, may it rest in peace.
Most likely people have simply given up taking the source code and building it themselves. If a prebuilt binary is not available they will simply give up.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This is back when "I can see from some of the pixels" was a valid complaint.
source:
I have seen quite a few shops in my day.
I enjoy and "old fashioned" any day, but since if you've upgraded to a Fleshlight, Girlfriend, Mistress or Wife, why go back other than just for nostalgia and shits and giggles?
Woah there, little fella.
The order goes hand, fleshlight, girlfriend, wife, THEN mistress, then quickly back to hand.
It still falls short a bit of having a usable Photoshop on a tablet. The latest Photoshop is not touch-aware, and is (from experience) very difficult to use on a touch-only device. Adobe needs to do some work there, and their efforts thus far are toys, meant for dressing up tablet camera photos, not serious content creation.
This is, incidentally, the same issue on Windows 8 tablets. Yes, you can use the latest full version of Photoshop. (Assuming intel-based tablets, because on ARM you have the same issue -- there's no version compiled for your device.) Yes, the experience still sucks, unless you attach the optional keyboard and mouse and use it like a laptop. But then, why not just use a laptop? And if you're going to use a laptop anyway, why put up with the funky Windows 8 interface when you can continue to use the more KVM-friendly interface of Windows 7?
So, kudos to samzenpus for figuring this out -- it's pretty cool. But it's more an interesting gimmick than the thing everyone -- including me -- have been looking for.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
We're nerds. We don't buy solutions, we create them.
There is a reason nerds have to create solutions.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
That sounds *really* interesting - anybody know where the rest of the population can get Windows 3.1 licenses?
I doubt that Microsoft would be willing to release it into the wild - so where can we find them?
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
and my ancient Windows 1.03 floppies. Of course, finding a 5.25" drive to read them may be a problem... I'll have to dig around in my junk box.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Yeah I am sure that is real usable.
Personally I can barely stand the latency of using Linux in a VM on my 3.2GHz quad core desktop.
Wow... these comments make up a lot of assumptions about my character. What's with all the hostility? One guy called me a cunt! What's next, threats?
Look, you can cobble together a solution for yourself, nothing is wrong with that. I wasn't intending to make it sounds like that was a bad thing.
I'm just saying, pay attention to when you have to do it and you'll see some room for potential invention. The old tablets were a solution looking for a problem - we wern't ready for them yet, and they wern't really good enough for us yet. Now that we're getting used to tablets with the new, cheap consumer oriented models, we're looking for something with more power. We're cobling together our own solutions. I recognize the Surface Pro because I really want one (fuck me right?), it has a pressure sensitive stylus, the same HD4000 from the Mac Mini's, and a real version of Windows that can run both the new and old style of programs. I believe now is the time for just such a device, and the field is wide open on that platform as far as applications are concerned.
You guys can downvote me if you want, it doesn't bother me because I know it's a knee jerk reaction against M$ and capitalists or whatever and I wasn't even thinking about it like that.
Am I totally off base here?
I bet you both are less expensive than a Surface Pro, and doesn't require him to toss his tablet aside.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
MSDN lets you download it. Hell, you can download DOS!
Of course, you have to know someone with a subscription...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
No we are not talking about pirating. You are talking about Pirating. That's not my thing.
"Why, on Earth, do we update our tech so often? What, exactly, can I do with the latest stuff that wasn’t possible with the previous version?"
I think in most ways we are coming to better terms with this. Long Rant Warning. Every so often you see someone driving a '70s F250 Hi Boy, or a mid 80s K20, or an early 90s Dodge Cummins. But hint: they are rare. These survivors aren't used as often, and are diminishingly available. Most people have the means to buy something newer and, at least typically, it would be more reliable and more easily repaired. (Aspects of this are arguable but...)
You do still see some manufacturing line computer equipment running on older software but how easily are these repaired? Yes, when it works you stick with it. Not everyone upgrades as often as PC gamers. Not everyone sees Windows 8 and runs out to buy an Intel i5 Thick-Tablet. PC sales are indeed slowing down as most have realized they do not need to upgrade too often.
I have a Sun Ultra 60, the CD drive died. When I looked into it a year or two ago it was ~$100 to buy a replacement. Why would I even want to do that? I still have installation options I could pursue but I do not believe it is worth the trouble. If I wanted to play with a Sparc I would probably just buy a newer Blade 2500. In this age of fast, cheap, quiet computer hardware why would I do that? I am not _that_ much of a computer hippy - or a truck hippy as I am very happy with my 10th Gen F150 (offroad pkg, limited slip, LT tires, a decent factory offroad/onroad pickup).
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
I don't know. How much time do you have to waste in an attempt to get antique software (Windows 3.1 and an old version of Photoshop) running on a platform that is almost entirely unsuited to the task the software was designed for. I mean, I could make a dump-trunk out of 1964 Volkswagen Beetle, but it would pretty much suck at all that hauling and dumping stuff.
SPEND MONEY! WE LOVE MONEY! WE WORSHIP MONEY!
Once you grow up, you realize that's frequently the equivalent of:
SAVE TIME! WE LOVE TIME! WE WORSHIP TIME!
Enough said.
Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects. -Dave Barry
What Wi-Fi chips have no windows 7 driver?? I would think with many enterprises and users still on windows 7 that is not true.
As a geek I appreciate the hack but I wouldn't go looking for win31 + abandonware as a general solution. If you like Adobe sw, try their free android photoshop: PSExpress or the paid version: PSTouch.
There are other free options on android: Snapseed.
If there are specific games/apps on win31 you'd like to run again, that is great. There is a lot of old software out there that is still fun to play with. In terms of actual utility, support for touch/new file formats etc., I would look for a native solution first.
Considering how awful most people consider Windows 8 anytime anyone makes a post mentioning that they like or would recommend Windows 8 to anyone the first thought is Shill.
It's a knee jerk reaction, and although Windows 8 sucks in so many ways, I can understand that you aren't a shill, you just like something that everyone who has used considers crap.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Every so often you see someone driving a '70s F250 Hi Boy, or a mid 80s K20, or an early 90s Dodge Cummins. But hint: they are rare
Cars wear out, and parts become increasingly difficult to find.
I'd still be driving my 81 Rabbit Diesel if it hadn't worn out and cost more to fix than it was worth.
Software doesn't wear out, though occasionally it does benefit from a re-install, which can be done for free.
Your Sun Ultra 60 example isn't even about software -- it's about hardware. And like cars, hardware wears out.
Mostly, I'm just saying that your analogy isn't very apt, as software and hardware are *very* different in this respect.
Of course, software suffers from not keeping up with the world around it. Office 97 is quite functional, but it can't load documents saved by newer versions of Office unless they explicitly saved in an old format, so that keeps people from using it even though it fits all their needs because of the people around them. But if your application doesn't require that you share files with others in incompatible formats, Office 97 may be just what you need.
Personally, I have to say "good for you" for the guy using the old Photoshop under Windows 3.1 under WINE. Though I would probably suggest that if Adobe hadn't been able to help him, the warez (or abandonwarez?) sites probably could.
What an interesting question, I've done that before, mostly out of nostalgia. And, of course, frustration with the upgrade treadmill.
There's essentially nothing you can't do with a 16-bit windows, it's what people worked with and played with, so there's a bit of everything .
You should install Win32s, WinG, Video for Windows, Trumpet Winsock.
Honestly I'm surprised you found it hard to track down old software, there's a pretty huge scene around it.
You can get pretty much every OS and application here: http://winworldpc.com/library_m1.shtml
This is also a great site to get old software: http://www.oldversion.com/
Moar: http://wiki.oldos.org/Downloads/Windows3x
http://gaby.de/win3x/esoft.htm
There are some surprisingly modern browsers available for 3.1, grab Opera 3.62 (also Netscape 4 and IE 5.5), and try Calmira for a Win9x type of GUI running under 3.1 - put the default XP wallpaper on that, and you will fool a lot of people :)
I once hacked XP to natively run the NT 3.51 shell on startup, instead of Windows Explorer. It wasn't hard.
DOSBox sucks for Windows, though, you should probably just run a VM, added performance. You can find some Windows games on abandonware sites, Civilization 2 was a good one :)
http://www.gameswin.biz/gameen.php?id=379
Let me know if you need anything else, would love to have a chat with a fellow enthusiast.
The bed you sleep on isn't free either, but since you've already paid for it, you are meeting your needs for a comfortable sleep by spending $0.
I'm just saying, pay attention to when you have to do it and you'll see some room for potential invention.
Why don't you start to pay attention yourself? The guy cooked up a solution that he can run on every device he owns, wondering how far he could take the principle of his solution. Then you advertise buying a separate hardware gadget as an improvement on that? WTH, man?
"Why, on Earth, do we update our tech so often? What, exactly, can I do with the latest stuff that wasn’t possible with the previous version?"
I think in most ways we are coming to better terms with this. Long Rant Warning. Every so often you see someone driving a '70s F250 Hi Boy, or a mid 80s K20, or an early 90s Dodge Cummins. .....
Yes, we can find examples from virtually every walk of life.....
BUT, you got lost in your car analogy, and never made it back to the point of the question.
Lots of safety, fuel efficiency, and rust-out problems force vehicle upgrades.
But about the only thing forcing computer upgrades is the user's desire for more speed. You can still find all the parts of old windows 3.1 era machines. And there are still places in the world where Windows 98 is commonly run, on ancient gear. You can "repair" it piecemeal with newer software, even newer disk drives, making it still a viable email and web surfing machine. For users who do that, and pretty much only that, sitting on the end of a dial-up line in some rural African town its all you need.
The answer to the original question is we upgrade our tech because we can. Because we see a benefit in doing so of ease of use, saving of time, and being able to do things that the old tech simply could not do. Because we see a benefit in portability, and smaller size. And lets face it, the old computers and the old software just wasn't as good as we seem to remember, and neither was the F250 Hi Boy.
Even the old fart shooing whippersnappers off his digital lawn is as likely to do so from a laptop or tablet at his couch rather than from the computer that monopolizing his desk, which monopolizes his spare bedroom.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
That would be "Photoshop Essentials" would it not?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection."
... except for the problem of too many layers of indirection."
Except that this user may end up running into Henney's Corollary: "
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Have you started up Gimp recently? I don't think it would run reasonably well on an embedded device.
gimp with a touch screen would be painful it would need a interface rewrite to be useful on a touchscreen at the very least.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
I still use Paint Shop Pro 5 almost daily. It runs fine on Win7 and does everything I need.
Neither are probably for sale legally, anywhere.
But a) many geeks have vast libraries of obsolete software (I, for example, have a 3.5 in disk version of OS/2 Warp in storage), and b) non-legal sources of ancient software are not hard to find. Abandonware sites, other geeks, bittorrent sites, etc. can get a DOSBox softwared up quick and cheap.
That sounds painful. Absolutely painful.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I wouldn't wipe my filthy ass with a fuckin' Microsoft Surface Pro
Neither would I- they're hard and not remotely absorbent.
Right, but software and hardware often go hand in hand. Maintaining an old software install gets hard when your motherboard cap pops and nothing available would run on it unless you scour craigslist - which people that value their time wouldn't want to do. I guess my point was that the useful timeframes of old software is still being found and can vary. The previously new software/PC world is now older and has started to stabililize. I still like to play Carmageddon or Red Alert, but would I use an old version of Borland from the same era? As to my car example, you are right that the analogy got wierd, but: my pickup and my sun ultra 60 are about the same age but only one of them has remained useful enough to keep maintaining (and at an "efficient" use of $$). The software I had been using on it is thus end of lined now.
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
If you have a Touch screen or a Graphics Tablet, you can just use MyPaint on GNU/Linux.
Original posted solution sounded like a fun--if not optimal--solution. I remember an ancient Word Perfect on Windoze 3.1 being more productive than later word processors over more modern computers. Why? Software developers (I'm guilty of being one) have accelerated their gobbling of memory and processor cycles over the years so much that the poor HW folks can't keep up...despite the later's impressive results. The result: page downs are still painfully slow. But hey, I can format the document in Vulcan XML. Thanks.
There is AutoCAD WS for Android.
While I wouldn't put GIMP up against today's Photoshop I would imagine it could at least best any version from the 90s.
Hard to be certain without them in front of me but even the current versions of GIMP aren't designed with printing in mind. GIMP is great for stuff you'll display on a screen or if your printing needs are rather modest. For web stuff current GIMP is probably better than ancient Photoshop but for certain printing needs even an old Photoshop has a strong chance to be better.
Some folks here can't imagine why he'd want to use the old Photoshop. Let me give you turkeys a clueX4 upside the head: in 1995, PC Mag did a review of word processors (and WordPerfect was the big dog, btw, not that piece of crap, Word). In it, they noted that 90% of the users never used more than 10% of the features IN THE WORD PROCESSORS at the time, and of the remaining 10%, they used some of the other 90% of the features perhaps 10% of the time.
So here's a challange: get a 10 yr old copy of a word processor, and use it as you normally would for a week, and write a story telling us how difficult it was, or what you couldn't do.
mark, who'd really like to get a better-working copy of WordPerfect for Linux (there was one on Corel
Linux in 2000), as it was *still* the better wp, and better than OO/LO
I thought the android tables could be unlocked to install a normal Linux distro. Then you'd just install gimp.
Am I totally off base here?
Yes.
The point of doing something like this is not simply to have the best capabilities for the least effort. It's to jury-rig something that is arguably more efficient in a single respect, and arguably not less efficient in any other respects; thusly gaining massive GeekCred.
In this case the "more efficient" respect is that he doesn't have to actually bother with the crap that comes with software upgrades. Learning all of GIMP, getting a LINUX distro that will run on his phone, he won't have to do repeat five years from now when everyone's 3D-Phablet runs a completely different OS, etc. He'll still be using DOSBox/Old-Ass Photoshop (OAP). Since DOSBox is pretty much unhackable without first hacking the physical cell phone it runs on, the only program he has to keep up-to-date security-wise is said cell-phone.
Since he doesn't need the numerous features of any more modern program it's arguably not less efficient for him to give those up.
Everyone else on Slashdot I guess. The other sites I frequent are more friendly toward it. Since this is super geek central I suppose I could have been more careful.
Funny way to spell consumer.
By your definition everyone would be a geek.
Yes, how dare I suggest a solution in which the user could use an up to date version of Photoshop on a tablet. One with layers non-distructive filters, and with a pressure sensitive pen to boot.
I thought he said no offence, not no comment.
I am interested in making a remote control for my HTPC based on an e-book reader which is why I'm curious about how programmable these tablets really are. I think e-paper would be great for a remote because a multi-function remote could have all the buttons labeled properly.
We're nerds. We don't buy solutions, we create them.
Or more commonly, nerds run around trying to find problems for their current favorite solution.
Moreso than Win 3.1 Photoshop?
Welcome to the age of virtualization and emulation.
Cheap storage VM.
I visited a Staples store last week and walked close to the table with laptops on it. The sales associate told me that a lot of people had been asking about downgrading, but "the problem with that is you can't get online" because the Wi-Fi chips in some of them have no Windows 7 driver. If you want, I can go back and get the make and model numbers of each of the display models.
When you have too many solutions or choices, you'll never be happy, because you're never sure you picked the best one. Check out this TED talk Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice
May have been a slick sales pitch.
If so, then a lot of home and small business users are likely to end up believing it.
Windows 8 software should run just fine on Windows 7.
Win32 application compatibility between Windows versions tends to be greater than device driver compatibility.
I have used Vista 64 bit drivers on Windows 7 before
That works because as I understand it, the changes from Windows Vista to Windows 7 were about as extensive as the changes from Windows XP RTM to Windows XP Service Pack 2. I've read that the changes from Windows 7 to Windows 8 were greater than those from Windows Vista to Windows 7, and the network driver ABI might not be fully compatible. See, for example, this forum post about difficulty finding Windows 7 drivers after downgrading from Windows 8.
All things being equal, if the win3.1 machine and the old jalopy still perform the tasks that they were built for, and those tasks don't change over time, and the cost to do those tasks didn't change, there would be no reason to upgrade.
True, But as I pointed out, all things aren't equal, and the list of tasks that the jalopy was made for are NOT the only tasks in the world.
Increase in possible tasks (benefits) become available as new things come along. (This is more so in computers than in trucks and cars). While the costs of THOSE old tasks didn't change, the cost of missed opportunity grows daily.
And, as you correctly surmised, that's when the incremental costs of NEW computers quickly overwhelm any cost saving of maintaining the OLD, even if you have a junk drawer full of spare parts.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Windows / MAC simcity 2000 was better then the dos ver.
Self correction - 1996's Photoshop 4.0 has Layers and Adjustment Layers, so those are bad examples. Here's what he's missing though:
And that's just what's new after 4.0 to 7.0.1, the list goes on much longer than that. Some of this stuff is pretty important even for the average Photoshop user.
And about this part: "But what other applications (and, potentially, games) does this give me access to? How far can I take this?"
Well, it's Windows!
When I did it, I did it because I needed the 16bit OS to run some old games I hadn't played in a while. Stuff like Chips Challenge and Klotski, but that can still be done better under emulation on an intel machine
By your definition everyone would be a geek.
Nope - 'everyone' buys solutions, but only after they're told they exist and their choices are often sub-optimal and driven by poor information. Geeks figure out needs and acquire (buy/beg/build) the best solutions for the given requirements (not uncommonly combining multiple unrelated COTS solutions to form another). At least those who are allowed to keep their cards, anyway.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Does Gimp suck so much that people are willing to go and beg Adobe for a 17 year old version
For most things GIMP is fine and quite capable but it could be SO much better. Seriously, I use GIMP all the time but the interface arguably does suck that bad. Also GIMP isn't really built with printing capabilities in mind the way Photoshop always had been.
The typical "blue screen" error message in windows 3.1 was "Unexpected Application Error". This was before the days where each application had it's own memory space, so it usually required you to exit windows, or worse, reboot.
Looks like the MS Surface Pro 128GB version, only has 83GB useable by the user..Linky
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
can it read any of the modern camera RAW formats or use any modern plug ins? If not, what can it do that GIMP cannot? What's the point.
Looks like the MS Surface Pro 128GB version, only has 83GB useable by the user..Linky
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That was pretty cool.
A few years ago I worked for a company that was still using Foxpro for many of its production systems. I found an ancient copy of Foxpro for DOS on eBay and got it running on my Ubuntu box via a DOS emulator.
Easy Techs are high pressure salesman and if you are not selling rip off cables and other stuff you get your hours cut or you get fired.
http://iworkatpencils.blogspot.com/
Ebay.
Kid-proof tablet..
PNG was not released until the same year as the Photoshop in the article (1996). I didn't try it myself, but I suspect that old version of Photoshop does not support PNG. So I'm going to guess that if an image with alpha channels needs to be made, one must safe it as TARGET or TIFF and then convert it to PNG.
You really have to hate the GIMP to even do this, or be painfully committed to running everything in DOS. (There are folks that run everything they need day-to-day on an Apple IIgs, it can be done!)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"Why a Linux User Is Using Windows 3.1"
Have all the masochism jokes already been made?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Does it support a wacom?
that computing not proceeding. Corel draw 3.0 exceeds the capabilities of all vector drawing programs for android easil and it ran with 4MB of ram without problems. Illustrator from the same period still matches inkscape when it comes to plainly makin a drawing (actually it was more user friendly). Word 5.0 for DOS war fine on 512kB of RAM, and describe 4.0 for OS/2 was more responsive on a 486 machine from the area than most word processors are nowadays on a machine 100 time faster.
Here's one more: Calmira
Calmira is a classic W9x GUI for W3.x. I used this very happily when I said "how far can I take this?" a few years back. (486 Thinkpad with flawed RAM; would install 16bit OS, but not 32bit OS.)(New RAM for an obsolete laptop was bloody expensive and defeated the exercise.)
So, what else is there? Let's answer the guy's question.
Games are pretty easy. A lot of people have looked into that already, so Google will have him covered there. Homesite comes to mind as a classic app that's still missed today. Two FOSS projects do rather poor versions. Lunduke should try finding a copy of v4.5 to check out a really fabulous editor.
Everyone buys the things that are necessary to give them the time and tools to create what they really want to create. Of course a Real Programmer would never use a keyboard when she could use a butterfly, but she's probably going to go buy the right butterfly rather than engineering it herself in her custom-made biolab. Sometimes it is better (or more fun) to hack a solution creatively, and sometimes we trade money for time so that we can focus on what we really care about (i.e., a different, more fun/creative/important hack).
tl;dr Time is money. No need to reinvent the wheel (unless you're making a better wheel).
Perhaps they need more variants? Something more tailored to the mobile space? I have no idea if the author is a 'market of one', but I guess I could see some niche that is being poorly filled right now.
What is it with all you free market anti-nerds?? Your solution isn't "use your brain to hack out a solution," It's "SPEND MONEY! WE LOVE MONEY! WE WORSHIP MONEY!"
What on earth does consumerism have to do with the free market? It's quite possible to support a free market without being a consumerist, and it's very possible to be against a free market and still be a consumerist.
All you need for excessive consumption is a market - whether it's free or not is irrelevant.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
You're going to play NES while driving?
No, I play emulated NES games and native 2D games while someone else drives me.
Until we become manufacturers ourselves, we'll have to live with the incumbent manufacturers' artificial obstacles. I don't see how most home and small business users are willing to become manufacturers.
Since I have a paying job in the software industry, I buy the latest version of what I need. If you're making due on minimum wage and a diet of Ramen noodles and Mountain Dew, this kind of cost-saving exercise might make sense, I guess.
Anyway, he's a tech writer, so I assume it would be easier for him to call up Adobe and say, "Hey, I'm working on this hilarious project, do you happen to have..."
More likely what happened is he called up Adobe and said "Hey, I'm looking for a copy of your software that isn't riddled with security holes" and that is what they came up with.
tl;dr :
"I bought a real keyboard so I would have more time to read sci-fi."
THIS.
Photoshop 4 has a history that only allows 1 undo.
Basically you have to save a copy every time you make a good change. One file ends up as a whole folder full of pics, just in case you have to go back and revert to an older version.
Having said that, the guy's solution sounds really cool.
I remember photoshop back then, it was crap, didn't even have UNDO. When I went on a photoshop newsgroup asking about UNDO, thinking I just couldn't find it, I was told "real professionals save before every step" and generally flamed. Since I wasn't a graphics professional (just an occasional CAD user) I just used gimp - and sure enough photoshop later got not only UNDO but also the multi-window behaviour of gimp that people have been bitching about for 15 years because it doesn't look like photoshop.
So the question remains - why take a bit of software that was flawed in it's day and is vastly inferior to everything similar now and shoehorn it into an emulation environment instead of just taking a better bit of current software that runs on multiple platforms - or just run something better on that emulation environment? What's stopping dotpaint or whatever from 2013 running on mono or inside an emulation environment?
Of course, many people will think that some software back from 1996 is no good, but that is just nonsense by those that have swallowed the marketing-FUD wholesale. Many useful Unix software is even older. I routinely use xfig, which apparently is 28 years old. Still one of the best object-oriented graphics tools around.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Instead of 3.1. From what I remeber both were better then 3.1. But I haven't used WIndows (except ina VM ) for about 7 years. Just askin.
You made a logical and totally reasonable suggestion, but it went against his religion. His internal conflict caused him to lash out at you the messenger.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
Did someone just discover Virtualization?
I've been hacking computer hardware and software as recreation and occupation since the VIC-20 days. I bought VMWare when it first came out over a decade ago, because I realized what a useful backup tool it was. As I had (back then) all of my old original hard drives, disks, and the like, I was able to archive and boot OS's and programs that are now long gone. My final DOS install from around 1990 with all my 1980's work on it under DOSBox. Win 3.11. (Borland C++). Windows 95 (Generic CADD). Windows 98. Windows 2000. My original floppy disk Slackware install from the mid '90s. All running as VMWare VMs on my Gentoo box. (Should move them to Virtualbox some day...) Backups from old ZIP drives (remember those?) Even the college papers I did using Speedscript on a C-64 (yes I'm that old) are still available to me because the old Commodore disks got archived and still run fine using VICE. When working with industrial controllers and the like, you'd be surprised how often it is necessary to fire up some ancient tool or peruse some old documentation. And sometimes it's fun just to run old applications like Johnny Castaway for s**ts and giggles.
This is also why I refuse to buy any version of Windows beyond 2000, any program that requires a dongle, or any program that requires online 'activation'. If it can't run in a VM or expires, I want nothing to do with it.
The only thing I never archived was my old copy of MS Bob, and the disk got tossed a decade ago too. Shame, really. Some days I miss Clippy and Comic Sans.
I'd be interested in seeing a youtube video of this in action if possible. Would be fun to see how you use it :)
Hmmm, must now play with Boxer to see what I can cobble together.
You know, when he actually explains how to do this.
...but PS needs a 256-color display. THIS Tutorial will get you a working 256-color display, but now when I try to run Photoshop, it immediately crashes. LIke, all of Dosbox, not just Windows.
Getting the Win3.1 and Photoshop installers is trivial.
Installing Win3.1 is a snap.
The Photoshop installer runs fine.
So really looking forward to reading about the tweaks he came up with to get this shit ACTUALLY WORKING.
... just be careful of the friggin Yeti.
I even thought about running fallout 2 or magic carpet on it but it was way too slow. Maybe now that handhelds are getting more and more powerful dosbox might actually be a ok idea for some stuff, but I doubt the touch interface is going to make it a pleasant experience.
Office 97 is quite functional, but it can't load documents saved by newer versions of Office.
When I noticed this dirty trick, I started saving my own stuff in .txt files. This has proved fortuitous. I've had a few more recent iterations of Office but I pity those forced to comply with this herd shearing. YMMV
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Why an old copy of photoshop when GIMP is available?
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Or just use open/WEP protected WiFi-s nearby
I use open Wi-Fi while in restaurants, but I've never had a laptop or a tablet maintain an association to Wi-Fi while the bus I'm on is moving. Wi-Fi just isn't designed for that sort of rapid handoff pattern.