http://www.menuetos.net/
Please check out the MenuetOS page, download a disk image, and see if it's something you can use. Can't hurt to try it on one of the old machines. The hardware requirements are modest for the 32-bit version, plus it's Open Source.
There is a series of classic (and somewhat corny) books by Isaac Asimov writing under the pseudonym of Paul French; the books are in the "Lucky Starr" series. They take place in the 25th or 26th Century, and sort of are a prelude to the more mature writings of the "Foundation" series, or of the world depicted in "Caves of Steel." I read these when I was in the seventh grade, and remember them still. May not be easy to find, but definitely worth it.
You are allowed to sell Open Source Software. BUT, you must include the source code with the distribution that you sell. And, you can't prohibit the buyer from giving away the copy which he bought. You are entitled, however, to receive upstream any changes that are made, and no one is allowed to remove your copyleft on any portions of the code that you wrote. If you worry that someone who buys your software might resell it, you can't stop that, but you can always undercut their prices. Open Source is not the same as free software. It means that the user is given the right to modify the code if they so wish - and if they re-release it, must also do so under the GPL (or LGPL, or whichever one you choose).
Now, seems to me, from the VERY beginning, this has been the convention. Every hard drive manufacturer uses decimal to describe the capacity of the drive, and that is, in fact, accurate. There have long been proposals of differentiating between gigabyte (decimal) and gibabyte (binary), terabyte and tibabyte, etc. It never caught on. So, now some person(s) with no knowledge of personal computer history wins a lawsuit? Considering that Seagate is the successor of Shugart, the guys who invented the personal computer hard drive, shouldn't they have had a say in the definitions of terms? Western Digital is next on the hit list...
Truly bad science, indeed. How large of a sample could they possibly have used? What methods for a control group? What kinds of brain scans? MRI? CT? Who funded this study? It is interesting that lumped in with being a Democrat is flexibility in just about everything - social ideas, political ideas, and even (amazing) religious ideas. But, extreme flexibility can also be viewed as an inability to take a stand on something in which you truly believe, since you don't truly believe in anything. You can open your mind so far that your brains fall out, you know? No - I'm sure that no reputable Journal will do anything but scoff at that so-called study.
I started in on computer games back in the days of the now-defunct magazine, Creative Computing. We (fellow geeks and I) used a PDP-8 in the high school computer room to enter (converting and modifying) BASIC and Fortran programs, saving them to 8-inch floppies. Some of us learned Assembler, just to speed up the games. We were lucky - some schools were using paper-tape. Anyway, there was always a feeling of accomplishment when we could devise a conversion from one dialect of BASIC into another, and then think of improvements, and implement those. Graphics were just ASCII on a 24x80 monochrome monitor, but it's all we knew, and it was wonderful. We used our minds in games like Wumpus, Adventure, Space Wars, and learned mathematics in programming various search-and-destroy games. What I see seriously lacking today is that the kids are just Users, not Programmers. It's as if the schools and society have lower expectations of youngsters. Many high school curricula on what they call Computer Science is nothing more than learning Microsoft Junk. No logic. No exploration. No accomplishment. Just entertainment.
The primary issue that I have with Microsoft products is that the company releases them while in a stage that most every other company on earth would still consider to be in BETA testing. Then, the consumers are used to report bugs, flaws, dangerous security holes, and patches are released at untimely (albeit regular) intervals. The other big issue is that I have documents going back to MS Word 5.5 (old DOS version), and although all have that MS DOC extension, none of them are compatible because of the binary bits at the beginning of each file. So, unreadable files. Recent activity by Microsoft leaves a bad flavor in the mouth not because of their products, but because of the politics and bullying the company does to try to maintain the status quo; instead of producing a product that everyone will want, the company simply makes their products incompatible - often hostile, refusing to coexist peacefully - with every other product on the market. My opinions...
I've repaired a number of machines for people, and have found OFTEN that their copy of Windows (whatever version) is not valid. When trying to update through the MS site, the OS is rejected as pirated. When that happens, I do what I can, but give them a warning that it would be in their best interest to stay on the right side of legalities. That's when I've offered Linux. Recently, Ubuntu or Kubuntu, but before that it was Mandrake 10 (I know, major change over). With all the new software that's come out in the last two years that OSS, and really seriously good, unless someone is stuck with some bizarre feature of their favorite app, or their hardware is unsupported by Linux (yet), it can be quite enticing to tell a person that they'll have much fewer problems with spyware or virus threats, and without anti-spyware and anti-virus programs running the background their machines will appear to run SO much faster. That's the best selling point I've found. As long as people can surf the Internet, use GAIM, do their e-mail, use OOo, and the other basics, they're generally content after they find that the GUI is little different from what they're used to using. Just, low key, no pressure.
It's pretty obvious from the last major Microsoft OS release, WinXP, that when Vista is released, it will be LOADED with dangerous bugs, holes at various ports, nasty places for genius script kiddies with ill-intent to exploit, and generally NOT be ready for public release. The poor people of the USA will be the unwitting BETA testers for this new software. It is, in fact, WISE for the EU to avoid Vista until at least the second major release (for those who are determined to stay with MS, for whatever reason). There really is no threat. And, with so many municipalities already migrating to Linux for government work, MS can boycott all they want. The major bunch that would be inconvenienced would be the "gamers" who want the newest bells and whistles. Tsk.
I don't know if this has been addressed - there have been so many comments to this thread. I have a problem explaining to people how some e-mail accounts (AOL, for instance) keeps everything on their servers, while most e-mail clients using POP3 will keep files/e-mail locally on the client computer, and delete off of the server. This is a major problem for some users to understand. Other issues include WHY using Microsoft IE is such a bad idea, and why it's a good idea to avoid websites that can only be accessed by IE. Most computers that I've had to clean up were messed up by ActiveX that allowed malware into the system. Just some problems I've encountered. Thanks.
There are school systems in less affluent areas that are still using Pentium-I machines @ 200 MHz or less. Putting these in network using Linux makes them usable as workstations for students. Can't do that with any MS product beyond Windows 98, for which NO security patches of any kind are being produced, since it's a "retired" product. (And, for a public bulletin board, your language is really inappropriate.)
I've done something similar, and it was just the opposite of what many here suggest. I protected the hard drive vent holes, the CD ROM, the floppy drive. But, left off the side panels. Blew off the dust daily - especially out from the power supply and the CPU fan. Most of the rest of the components survive rather well this way. Trick is just to keep it clean. Without the side panels, cooling is not a problem, and there's no need for aux fans. Just a thought. Oh, I did this with a Tyan P-3, no audio, TNT2 video, and a simple RealTek 8139c NIC. Worked fine.
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Gives an entirely new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death, doesn't it?
http://www.menuetos.net/ Please check out the MenuetOS page, download a disk image, and see if it's something you can use. Can't hurt to try it on one of the old machines. The hardware requirements are modest for the 32-bit version, plus it's Open Source.
There is a series of classic (and somewhat corny) books by Isaac Asimov writing under the pseudonym of Paul French; the books are in the "Lucky Starr" series. They take place in the 25th or 26th Century, and sort of are a prelude to the more mature writings of the "Foundation" series, or of the world depicted in "Caves of Steel." I read these when I was in the seventh grade, and remember them still. May not be easy to find, but definitely worth it.
You are allowed to sell Open Source Software. BUT, you must include the source code with the distribution that you sell. And, you can't prohibit the buyer from giving away the copy which he bought. You are entitled, however, to receive upstream any changes that are made, and no one is allowed to remove your copyleft on any portions of the code that you wrote. If you worry that someone who buys your software might resell it, you can't stop that, but you can always undercut their prices. Open Source is not the same as free software. It means that the user is given the right to modify the code if they so wish - and if they re-release it, must also do so under the GPL (or LGPL, or whichever one you choose).
Now, seems to me, from the VERY beginning, this has been the convention. Every hard drive manufacturer uses decimal to describe the capacity of the drive, and that is, in fact, accurate. There have long been proposals of differentiating between gigabyte (decimal) and gibabyte (binary), terabyte and tibabyte, etc. It never caught on. So, now some person(s) with no knowledge of personal computer history wins a lawsuit? Considering that Seagate is the successor of Shugart, the guys who invented the personal computer hard drive, shouldn't they have had a say in the definitions of terms? Western Digital is next on the hit list...
Truly bad science, indeed. How large of a sample could they possibly have used? What methods for a control group? What kinds of brain scans? MRI? CT? Who funded this study? It is interesting that lumped in with being a Democrat is flexibility in just about everything - social ideas, political ideas, and even (amazing) religious ideas. But, extreme flexibility can also be viewed as an inability to take a stand on something in which you truly believe, since you don't truly believe in anything. You can open your mind so far that your brains fall out, you know? No - I'm sure that no reputable Journal will do anything but scoff at that so-called study.
I started in on computer games back in the days of the now-defunct magazine, Creative Computing. We (fellow geeks and I) used a PDP-8 in the high school computer room to enter (converting and modifying) BASIC and Fortran programs, saving them to 8-inch floppies. Some of us learned Assembler, just to speed up the games. We were lucky - some schools were using paper-tape. Anyway, there was always a feeling of accomplishment when we could devise a conversion from one dialect of BASIC into another, and then think of improvements, and implement those. Graphics were just ASCII on a 24x80 monochrome monitor, but it's all we knew, and it was wonderful. We used our minds in games like Wumpus, Adventure, Space Wars, and learned mathematics in programming various search-and-destroy games. What I see seriously lacking today is that the kids are just Users, not Programmers. It's as if the schools and society have lower expectations of youngsters. Many high school curricula on what they call Computer Science is nothing more than learning Microsoft Junk. No logic. No exploration. No accomplishment. Just entertainment.
The primary issue that I have with Microsoft products is that the company releases them while in a stage that most every other company on earth would still consider to be in BETA testing. Then, the consumers are used to report bugs, flaws, dangerous security holes, and patches are released at untimely (albeit regular) intervals. The other big issue is that I have documents going back to MS Word 5.5 (old DOS version), and although all have that MS DOC extension, none of them are compatible because of the binary bits at the beginning of each file. So, unreadable files. Recent activity by Microsoft leaves a bad flavor in the mouth not because of their products, but because of the politics and bullying the company does to try to maintain the status quo; instead of producing a product that everyone will want, the company simply makes their products incompatible - often hostile, refusing to coexist peacefully - with every other product on the market. My opinions...
I've repaired a number of machines for people, and have found OFTEN that their copy of Windows (whatever version) is not valid. When trying to update through the MS site, the OS is rejected as pirated. When that happens, I do what I can, but give them a warning that it would be in their best interest to stay on the right side of legalities. That's when I've offered Linux. Recently, Ubuntu or Kubuntu, but before that it was Mandrake 10 (I know, major change over). With all the new software that's come out in the last two years that OSS, and really seriously good, unless someone is stuck with some bizarre feature of their favorite app, or their hardware is unsupported by Linux (yet), it can be quite enticing to tell a person that they'll have much fewer problems with spyware or virus threats, and without anti-spyware and anti-virus programs running the background their machines will appear to run SO much faster. That's the best selling point I've found. As long as people can surf the Internet, use GAIM, do their e-mail, use OOo, and the other basics, they're generally content after they find that the GUI is little different from what they're used to using. Just, low key, no pressure.
It's pretty obvious from the last major Microsoft OS release, WinXP, that when Vista is released, it will be LOADED with dangerous bugs, holes at various ports, nasty places for genius script kiddies with ill-intent to exploit, and generally NOT be ready for public release. The poor people of the USA will be the unwitting BETA testers for this new software. It is, in fact, WISE for the EU to avoid Vista until at least the second major release (for those who are determined to stay with MS, for whatever reason). There really is no threat. And, with so many municipalities already migrating to Linux for government work, MS can boycott all they want. The major bunch that would be inconvenienced would be the "gamers" who want the newest bells and whistles. Tsk.
... they've just been doing it by proxy, through SCO. Or, does anyone disagree with that??
I don't know if this has been addressed - there have been so many comments to this thread. I have a problem explaining to people how some e-mail accounts (AOL, for instance) keeps everything on their servers, while most e-mail clients using POP3 will keep files/e-mail locally on the client computer, and delete off of the server. This is a major problem for some users to understand. Other issues include WHY using Microsoft IE is such a bad idea, and why it's a good idea to avoid websites that can only be accessed by IE. Most computers that I've had to clean up were messed up by ActiveX that allowed malware into the system. Just some problems I've encountered. Thanks.
There are school systems in less affluent areas that are still using Pentium-I machines @ 200 MHz or less. Putting these in network using Linux makes them usable as workstations for students. Can't do that with any MS product beyond Windows 98, for which NO security patches of any kind are being produced, since it's a "retired" product. (And, for a public bulletin board, your language is really inappropriate.)
I've done something similar, and it was just the opposite of what many here suggest. I protected the hard drive vent holes, the CD ROM, the floppy drive. But, left off the side panels. Blew off the dust daily - especially out from the power supply and the CPU fan. Most of the rest of the components survive rather well this way. Trick is just to keep it clean. Without the side panels, cooling is not a problem, and there's no need for aux fans. Just a thought. Oh, I did this with a Tyan P-3, no audio, TNT2 video, and a simple RealTek 8139c NIC. Worked fine.