In addition to this, I'm reasonably certain that all of the cash registers, as well as some of the back-office systems for one of the major Australia supermarkets still run on OS/2 (on the cash-related back-office systems it's possible to open an About window showing the OS/2 logo and 'Copyright 1992'). The register software is actively maintained, but I'm guessing there haven't been any major changes recently.
I am a self-confessed hoarder and I, too, copy everything over from old system to new system like this. On a new system, you generally don't even notice the space taken up, even if you do a complete dump of everything on the old hard disk (deleting system-specific things like the DOS/Windows directory and so forth). Then, store the original hard disk media away for safe keeping, so you have multiple backups of your oldest data. You'd have to be pretty unlucky for all the media to fail at once.
It can be fun looking back over those 286 games you used to play (Captain Comic, anyone?). On the downside, you end up with a lot of crap that won't run on the newer systems. If you're really keen, this can be solved with emulation.
I don't think that one of your points, that USB is only useful when run at high speed, is necessarily valid. The main reasons I like USB are:
ubiquitous - you can plug your USB mouse, keyboard, scanner, memory stick, etc. into any computer and expect it to work.
easy - generally no messing around with drivers, etc. (unless you're running an old/broken system).
hot pluggable - whereas with a PS2 mouse, I have to restart my computer to have it work, a USB one will work straight away when you plug it in.
I don't use USB for networking, hard drives, CD burners, or any of the other things that you mentioned. There are better solutions for these applications. However, it has much vendor support (regardless whether it originally came from Microsoft or not - that is irrelevant).
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In addition to this, I'm reasonably certain that all of the cash registers, as well as some of the back-office systems for one of the major Australia supermarkets still run on OS/2 (on the cash-related back-office systems it's possible to open an About window showing the OS/2 logo and 'Copyright 1992'). The register software is actively maintained, but I'm guessing there haven't been any major changes recently.
I guess, if it ain't broke, why fix it?
I am a self-confessed hoarder and I, too, copy everything over from old system to new system like this. On a new system, you generally don't even notice the space taken up, even if you do a complete dump of everything on the old hard disk (deleting system-specific things like the DOS/Windows directory and so forth). Then, store the original hard disk media away for safe keeping, so you have multiple backups of your oldest data. You'd have to be pretty unlucky for all the media to fail at once.
It can be fun looking back over those 286 games you used to play (Captain Comic, anyone?). On the downside, you end up with a lot of crap that won't run on the newer systems. If you're really keen, this can be solved with emulation.
I don't think that one of your points, that USB is only useful when run at high speed, is necessarily valid. The main reasons I like USB are:
I don't use USB for networking, hard drives, CD burners, or any of the other things that you mentioned. There are better solutions for these applications. However, it has much vendor support (regardless whether it originally came from Microsoft or not - that is irrelevant).