Most of the above is because of increased pressure from competition. The only one that doesn't have intense competition at the moment is the programming tools (not so much the APIs, but the actual compiler/IDE), but in the early days they had to compete with Borland. One nice thing is that even though the competition has faded, they continue to release a top notch product. The same can't be said for other products or divisions though (Internet Explorer).
the IIgs comes close, does 640x200 and 320x200 video. As for my Transwarp GS, you can pry it from my cold dead hands. I managed to score it for $30 since it was "flaky". A new CPU cable, the modern 65c816, and some crystals its cranking away at a stable 12.5Mhz now. Judging how much cards for that computer sell for now, vs. what I paid for them in the late 90s, I guess it was a pretty good return on investment. I hear the market is even hotter in Japan for vintage Apple parts.
The Windows Sound System? It was nothing more then a hardware specification. It never really got much use from anyone except for Aztech Labs (the OEM soundcards in mid 90s Packard Bell machines). Why bother when the industry already had a defacto standard to follow? (Soundblaster)
I have had no issues with my X-Fi under the Windows 7 x64 RC. I am using DanielK's X-Fi Support Pack 2.0 (search for it on Creative's Sound Blaster Support forum) for the drivers. The machine has 4GB of RAM, which is known to cause problems under x64 with the X-Fi, but I have had none thus far. Motherboard is Intel X38 based with a Core2Duo CPU FWIW.
There should be less teething problems with the X-Fi drivers this time around since the sound subsystem in Windows 7 is practically unchanged from that in Vista.
As a result, incidentally, it's still using about 1W while it's "off". Hard power switches on the front of computers would save a significant amount of energy.
Well that WAS the case with the old AT standard power supplies. Nothing is stopping one from hooking the computer up to a power strip and switching that off when you aren't using it.
Actually thanks to the computer folks who felt HDMI didn't meet their "needs", we have yet another NIH standard: Display Port. It of course is not compatible with HDMI/DVI monitors, but hey its royalty-free.
My LCD Monitor has a DVI-D port with HDCP (DRM)... basically its HDMI without the audio signals. You do realizes DVI to HDMI cables and adapters exist, right?
While i agree, consumer electronics is getting to the point you don't repair them, its cheaper t just buy a new one instead of pay someone an hourly fee close to 75% of the new shiny more powerful machine. When was the last time you had a TV repaired? Or a cell phone ( which also used to be stupid priced not long ago )
You'd be surprised how many people will bring in a LCD monitor to a computer store and asked if it can be fixed. Many times it can be done cheaply if its simply the inverter for the backlight (which happens to be easy to test with the right tools).
As for cell phones, a friend of mine used to fix them as an in-store tech for Sprint. When you are under contract and ineligible for subsidized phone pricing, repair becomes a much cheaper option. Your average Joe won't go onto ebay and find another phone, plus they usually want their phone book on the now broken phone, so they goto the store.
When I was working at the shop, I had no problem using slipstreamed media. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more odd ball versions of XP install media out there. Looks like this file controls which keys the CD takes: http://www.freepctech.com/pc/xp/xp00066.shtml
Make sure the media is an OEM copy of the XP version the key is for (Home, Pro, MCE, or Tablet). Retail copies won't accept OEM keys and vice versa. If it still don't work, slipstream in SP3.. a lot cleaner install then having to go grab SP3 afterward. At my old job (computer repair shop) we had the following copies on hand:
XP Pro Full Retail
XP Home Full Retail
XP Pro Upgrade
XP Home Upgrade
XP Pro OEM
XP Home OEM
XP MCE OEM
XP Tablet OEM
XP Pro VLK (yes we had businesses with legit site licenses)
Thankfully Microsoft got a clue and made Vista and 7 install DVDs universal, that condensed down to 2 discs, 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Lets not get into the mess of CDs we needed for Windows 95/98...
Its public, and the MTA is broke... so instead of putting all the burden on the riders in forms of big fare increases, they are making the taxpayers (many of which may never use the train/bus as they are well outside of NYC) pay for the MTA's mis-management of funding and only hiking the fare a little bit for its users.
It would be interesting to see the numbers in this study if mass transit fares were NOT subsidized by taxpayers but instead the true cost paid directly by the users in the form of fares.
I can make a telephone call to almost any country in the world from here. The UN doesn't seem to have done a bad job ensuring that this works correctly, in spite of the committee that controls the international telephone system having multi-national components.
Good idea, any reason why the ITU can't administer DNS? I can't imagine them doing a worse job then the ICANN has already done.
If that represents the company's complete lineup of toner, they won't be doing very well. There aren't any 98X (Laserjet 4,5) or 95A (Laserjet II/III) cartridges on there, which is by far the largest installed base of laser printers out there (to HP's dismay, they just won't die). It would be interesting how these soy toners hold up, particularly in color laser applications.
Part of the problem is the paranoia Cable Labs has over licensing Cable Cards for use in HTPCs. You have to buy an OEM HTPC with Cable Card tuner and a special BIOS so it only works on that machine. Until one can go onto Newegg and buy a Cable Card compatible ATSC/QAM tuner card that works in ANY PC, WMC isn't going anywhere fast in the DTV era (at least in the US, I hear WMC has decent DVB support).
16-bit apps run on the 32-bit version of Vista no problem. If anything they are just as compatible with Vista as they are with XP since the WoW subsystem and Win16 API is basically unchanged between the two. The x64 version removed the 16-bit subsystem, so one would have to rely on DOSBox (optionally running Windows 3.1) for 16-bit app support.
And they are making good on that GPS unlock promise. Leaked Verizon branded beta firmware for the Samsung Omnia i910 (a WM6.1 device) has unlocked GPS.
And unlike AT&T, Verizon Wireless has been pretty proactive in fixing reported network problems. There are still areas in which AT&T has problems with dead zones and call drops that have been reported for well over 8-9 years. Verizon Wireless may be able to sway Apple depending on how fast they get LTE rolled out, unlike AT&T they have a heck of a lot more bandwidth and a nationwide 700Mhz license to speed things along.
The technology excuse isn't a very good one either. There are a few multiband CDMA2000/GSM/HSPA being sold right now. The Blackberry Storm is a good example with its full 800/900/1800/1900/2100Mhz CDMA2000/GSM/HSPA radio.
PCs came with controllers that only read MFM encoded disks. Apples (and I think Amigas) originally came with drives that read GCR encoded disks and supported variable spindle speeds (this is how they crammed more then 720k onto a disk). Since PCs were dominant, when HD floppies appeared both Commodore and Apple standardized with MFM and released disk controllers that were capable of reading both formats for backwards compatibility.
Unless you had an Apple IIgs. Its external drives had an eject button. Oddly the same eject button was disabled by MacOS when you connected the drives to an older Mac with an external floppy port.
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Most of the above is because of increased pressure from competition. The only one that doesn't have intense competition at the moment is the programming tools (not so much the APIs, but the actual compiler/IDE), but in the early days they had to compete with Borland. One nice thing is that even though the competition has faded, they continue to release a top notch product. The same can't be said for other products or divisions though (Internet Explorer).
Yes, I think they call them trees these days.
FWIW, a Twitter client for the Apple IIgs is coming out soon (scroll down to "Coming Soon"): http://www.ryansapplesoftware.com/
the IIgs comes close, does 640x200 and 320x200 video. As for my Transwarp GS, you can pry it from my cold dead hands. I managed to score it for $30 since it was "flaky". A new CPU cable, the modern 65c816, and some crystals its cranking away at a stable 12.5Mhz now. Judging how much cards for that computer sell for now, vs. what I paid for them in the late 90s, I guess it was a pretty good return on investment. I hear the market is even hotter in Japan for vintage Apple parts.
The Windows Sound System? It was nothing more then a hardware specification. It never really got much use from anyone except for Aztech Labs (the OEM soundcards in mid 90s Packard Bell machines). Why bother when the industry already had a defacto standard to follow? (Soundblaster)
I have had no issues with my X-Fi under the Windows 7 x64 RC. I am using DanielK's X-Fi Support Pack 2.0 (search for it on Creative's Sound Blaster Support forum) for the drivers. The machine has 4GB of RAM, which is known to cause problems under x64 with the X-Fi, but I have had none thus far. Motherboard is Intel X38 based with a Core2Duo CPU FWIW.
There should be less teething problems with the X-Fi drivers this time around since the sound subsystem in Windows 7 is practically unchanged from that in Vista.
Didn't MS turn off the mandatory WGA checks in the IE 7/8 installers a while back?
As a result, incidentally, it's still using about 1W while it's "off". Hard power switches on the front of computers would save a significant amount of energy.
Well that WAS the case with the old AT standard power supplies. Nothing is stopping one from hooking the computer up to a power strip and switching that off when you aren't using it.
Actually thanks to the computer folks who felt HDMI didn't meet their "needs", we have yet another NIH standard: Display Port. It of course is not compatible with HDMI/DVI monitors, but hey its royalty-free.
My LCD Monitor has a DVI-D port with HDCP (DRM)... basically its HDMI without the audio signals. You do realizes DVI to HDMI cables and adapters exist, right?
While i agree, consumer electronics is getting to the point you don't repair them, its cheaper t just buy a new one instead of pay someone an hourly fee close to 75% of the new shiny more powerful machine. When was the last time you had a TV repaired? Or a cell phone ( which also used to be stupid priced not long ago )
You'd be surprised how many people will bring in a LCD monitor to a computer store and asked if it can be fixed. Many times it can be done cheaply if its simply the inverter for the backlight (which happens to be easy to test with the right tools).
As for cell phones, a friend of mine used to fix them as an in-store tech for Sprint. When you are under contract and ineligible for subsidized phone pricing, repair becomes a much cheaper option. Your average Joe won't go onto ebay and find another phone, plus they usually want their phone book on the now broken phone, so they goto the store.
People learning a fictional language?!? WTF?!?
Try telling that to folks who speak Esperanto
When I was working at the shop, I had no problem using slipstreamed media. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more odd ball versions of XP install media out there. Looks like this file controls which keys the CD takes: http://www.freepctech.com/pc/xp/xp00066.shtml
Wasn't it actually the Apple II Monitor?
Make sure the media is an OEM copy of the XP version the key is for (Home, Pro, MCE, or Tablet). Retail copies won't accept OEM keys and vice versa. If it still don't work, slipstream in SP3.. a lot cleaner install then having to go grab SP3 afterward. At my old job (computer repair shop) we had the following copies on hand:
XP Pro Full Retail
XP Home Full Retail
XP Pro Upgrade
XP Home Upgrade
XP Pro OEM
XP Home OEM
XP MCE OEM
XP Tablet OEM
XP Pro VLK (yes we had businesses with legit site licenses)
Thankfully Microsoft got a clue and made Vista and 7 install DVDs universal, that condensed down to 2 discs, 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Lets not get into the mess of CDs we needed for Windows 95/98...
Its public, and the MTA is broke... so instead of putting all the burden on the riders in forms of big fare increases, they are making the taxpayers (many of which may never use the train/bus as they are well outside of NYC) pay for the MTA's mis-management of funding and only hiking the fare a little bit for its users.
It would be interesting to see the numbers in this study if mass transit fares were NOT subsidized by taxpayers but instead the true cost paid directly by the users in the form of fares.
I can make a telephone call to almost any country in the world from here. The UN doesn't seem to have done a bad job ensuring that this works correctly, in spite of the committee that controls the international telephone system having multi-national components.
Good idea, any reason why the ITU can't administer DNS? I can't imagine them doing a worse job then the ICANN has already done.
If that represents the company's complete lineup of toner, they won't be doing very well. There aren't any 98X (Laserjet 4,5) or 95A (Laserjet II/III) cartridges on there, which is by far the largest installed base of laser printers out there (to HP's dismay, they just won't die). It would be interesting how these soy toners hold up, particularly in color laser applications.
Part of the problem is the paranoia Cable Labs has over licensing Cable Cards for use in HTPCs. You have to buy an OEM HTPC with Cable Card tuner and a special BIOS so it only works on that machine. Until one can go onto Newegg and buy a Cable Card compatible ATSC/QAM tuner card that works in ANY PC, WMC isn't going anywhere fast in the DTV era (at least in the US, I hear WMC has decent DVB support).
16-bit apps run on the 32-bit version of Vista no problem. If anything they are just as compatible with Vista as they are with XP since the WoW subsystem and Win16 API is basically unchanged between the two. The x64 version removed the 16-bit subsystem, so one would have to rely on DOSBox (optionally running Windows 3.1) for 16-bit app support.
And they are making good on that GPS unlock promise. Leaked Verizon branded beta firmware for the Samsung Omnia i910 (a WM6.1 device) has unlocked GPS.
And unlike AT&T, Verizon Wireless has been pretty proactive in fixing reported network problems. There are still areas in which AT&T has problems with dead zones and call drops that have been reported for well over 8-9 years. Verizon Wireless may be able to sway Apple depending on how fast they get LTE rolled out, unlike AT&T they have a heck of a lot more bandwidth and a nationwide 700Mhz license to speed things along.
The technology excuse isn't a very good one either. There are a few multiband CDMA2000/GSM/HSPA being sold right now. The Blackberry Storm is a good example with its full 800/900/1800/1900/2100Mhz CDMA2000/GSM/HSPA radio.
PCs came with controllers that only read MFM encoded disks. Apples (and I think Amigas) originally came with drives that read GCR encoded disks and supported variable spindle speeds (this is how they crammed more then 720k onto a disk). Since PCs were dominant, when HD floppies appeared both Commodore and Apple standardized with MFM and released disk controllers that were capable of reading both formats for backwards compatibility.
Unless you had an Apple IIgs. Its external drives had an eject button. Oddly the same eject button was disabled by MacOS when you connected the drives to an older Mac with an external floppy port.
There should be a piece of paper somewhere (even if its an invoice/PO for the product from MS).
While you are at it with all that tape, you might as well add cutting and pasting to the list.