PC sales Suffer Biggest Slump in years

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Actually the latest PCs are "instant on", as fast as a phone or tablet.

Actually some of the old PCs are that way too.

When I started out as a young aircraft technician, the general rule was to keep the electronics running, "hot." It always seemed that the equipment usually "blew" on cutting it on or off.

Of course if only a battery is powering the equipment, there are problems with that idea, but my desktop at home is always on, 24x7. It will take the screen a second to brighten up once you touch the mouse.

I usually touch the mouse as I am sitting down, and the screen is there when I have positioned the office chair.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

Actually some of the old PCs are that way too.

When I started out as a young aircraft technician, the general rule was to keep the electronics running, "hot." It always seemed that the equipment usually "blew" on cutting it on or off.

Of course if only a battery is powering the equipment, there are problems with that idea, but my desktop at home is always on, 24x7. It will take the screen a second to brighten up once you touch the mouse.

I usually touch the mouse as I am sitting down, and the screen is there when I have positioned the office chair.

With my new PC tablet I can wake it up from sleep instantly and it can stay in sleep mode for many days without losing a significant amount of battery charge. Even with Wifi on and e-mail downloads active.

You can, of course, keep any old computer always plugged in, running, and then use it immediately --- but that wasn't progress.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

<snip>

With regard to dropping 16-bit emulation on Windows x64... that's not to force you to upgrade. That's an unfortunate inconvenience for you.

At some point, it just becomes economically unfeasible and sometimes technically impossible to keep operating systems up to date, AND keep them backwards compatible with 15+ year old applications; not to mention very old hardware. That's even more difficult, as often there are no new drivers for old hardware (economically unfeasible), and computers are even losing the required connections.

That is where virtual machines such as Virtual Box and emulators such as DOSBox come in. They actually emulate a complete, old system, so the operating system doesn't need to support it. That way, the operating system can by shiny new, supporting all the latest technologies, while the virtual machine provides and old computer to run old software on.

At this point, the only catch is 3D software such as games, and some heavy multimedia software... as you have already experienced in the case of PowerDVD.

And no; I don't buy or use new software just to use new software. I'm one of the last people to do so. If it works, it works. But if a new version provides me a noticable upgrade in functionality, speed or convenience, then I'll definitely upgrade.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

With regard to dropping 16-bit emulation on Windows x64... that's not to force you to upgrade. That's an unfortunate inconvenience for you.

At some point, it just becomes economically unfeasible and sometimes technically impossible to keep operating systems up to date, AND keep them backwards compatible with 15+ year old applications; not to mention very old hardware. That's even more difficult, as often there are no new drivers for old hardware (economically unfeasible), and computers are even losing the required connections.

That is where virtual machines such as Virtual Box and emulators such as DOSBox come in. They actually emulate a complete, old system, so the operating system doesn't need to support it. That way, the operating system can by shiny new, supporting all the latest technologies, while the virtual machine provides and old computer to run old software on.

At this point, the only catch is 3D software such as games, and some heavy multimedia software... as you have already experienced in the case of PowerDVD.

And no; I don't buy or use new software just to use new software. I'm one of the last people to do so. If it works, it works. But if a new version provides me a noticable upgrade in functionality, speed or convenience, then I'll definitely upgrade.

In answer to the above, the Google's new Chromebook system answers all those shortcomings. Every time you cut your machine on, a totally new uptodate system is loaded.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by frahse

In answer to the above, the Google's new Chromebook system answers all those shortcomings. Every time you cut your machine on, a totally new uptodate system is loaded.

That is precisely what I don't want.

I don't want my system to change, apart from plugging security holes or fixing bugs. Often, I don't install newer versions of sftware that have new functions, so I can stare the cat out of the tree.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I don't want my system to change, apart from plugging security holes or fixing bugs. Often, I don't install newer versions of sftware that have new functions, so I can stare the cat out of the tree.

Or even new software that has fewer functions or new software with a new user interface.

Sometimes I wonder how different the industry would be if software releases were infrequent and people actually took the time to learn how to use the software rather than chasing after new features all of the time. The way things are today, many people don't use software to even a minimal extent but we are constantly being forced to learn how the features we used in old versions work in the new versions.

[Katsunami]

A Dutch computer scientist once said:

"If houses were being built like software is at this time, then they'd crumble before being finished. It's a miracle that any software works at all."

I often feel that he was right. Think about all the software that runs on one computer at the same time, nowadays. Millions and millions of lines of code, written in 10 different languages, compiled using 8 different compilers, 32-bit and 64-bit mixed up... And it doesn't crash every 5 minutes.

I don't want to change more than one piece at a time, because if something is wrong... *boom*. You'd not even be able to determine where to start looking if you updated 20 pieces of software at once.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I often feel that he was right. Think about all the software that runs on one computer at the same time, nowadays. Millions and millions of lines of code, written in 10 different languages, compiled using 8 different compilers, 32-bit and 64-bit mixed up... And it doesn't crash every 5 minutes.

That's the benefit of an environment like Windows (and presumably other o/s's, too, which offer a programming API): follow the "rules" and your software should be pretty future-proof. I run my own business writing star-charting software for amateur astronomers, and I have customers who are now running under Windows 8 the version of my software they originally bought 18 years ago for Windows 95. I've never had compatibility issues with my software because I've always rigorously followed Microsoft's programming guidelines. Say what you like about Microsoft, but providing upward-compatibility for older software is something they've been pretty good at.

[pl001]

Originally Posted by frahse

In answer to the above, the Google's new Chromebook system answers all those shortcomings. Every time you cut your machine on, a totally new uptodate system is loaded.

That's wonderful, except for when things change you don't want to. Like Facebook is constantly doing. Or when it breaks existing apps, like what happens with every Android update.

Google and Microsoft both change things so often and so drastically that it's difficult if not impossible for a casual user to ever get really proficient in their products. Apple is on the other end where they resist change so much they fall way behind in functionality. Somewhere in the middle is a happy medium.

[Katsunami]

Microsoft doesn't change its products very often; The Office Ribbon interface and the Windows 8 GUI are the biggest two changes in about 15 years, to be honest. All the rest is adding functionality or shuffling stuff a bit.

Try some of the cutting edge Linux distributions. They change so often you can't even be sure what you're running at any given time.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Microsoft doesn't change its products very often; The Office Ribbon interface and the Windows 8 GUI are the biggest two changes in about 15 years, to be honest. All the rest is adding functionality or shuffling stuff a bit.

Both a step backwards, in my view.

[HarryT]

The Office Ribbon interface certainly takes a bit of learning, if you're familiar with the old Office UI, but once you're familiar with it, it is a lot more efficient, in that functions are collected together in logical groups.

[Billi]

I guess they have been collected together in logical groups before too.
What I never understood is how in a writing program the print function can be hidden inside a menu and not laid open on the ribbon like many other much less used functions are.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Billi

I guess they have been collected together in logical groups before too.

Certainly . But I think the new organisation is quicker to use, once you become familiar with it.

What I never understood is how in a writing program the print function can be hidden inside a menu and not laid open on the ribbon like many other much less used functions are.

It's not really an editing function, is it? It's something that you do with your document, like saving it, so it makes sense that it is there with the "File" functions.

[Billi]

But in regard to efficiency it doesn't make any sense: now you have to do three clicks to print a page, beforehand it has been only one click. Do you really think this is quicker now? And this function is one of the most often used ones.