
Where is it?
I've got a PC running 23H2 and I've never seen the invite to upgrade. It's got an Intel 8700 - maybe that's too old?
190 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2020
Thanks for that link. I will investigate. I can't post the source because I use some libraries (e.g. putting overlays into extended memory) which I don't own. So, githib isn't the way, but freedos maybe.
Alan
[edit - I've had a look there, but I can't work out how to add my program.
Back in the late 80's and early '90's, I wrote EasyEdit II - a text editor with word processing pretensions. It sold well (kept me in PC's for a few years) but, of course, got taken over by better Windows tools.
I've still got it lying around and, if you wish, you are welcome to add it to your collections. It's here https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/hvqjqcjdrp4xnbye7u5aj/AC3mEeqQwyF1zQhF0bZgX3A?rlkey=2nfmc8hg8z8s1ltp2ky1iy4jx&dl=1 - feel free to download it and play. It includes all documentation, of course.
Have fun
Alan
I was working at a company in Ipswich who had just got PCs (I was netwkring them). One secretary was using Wordstar but didn't really understand about files or anything. So, anything new, she tacked onto the top of the previous letters and then just printed the first 'x' pages to produce the document in question.
Of course, the file got humumgous and I had the task of explaining that she really needed to create new documents. Not sure it worked but we did have some nice evenings/nights out together
As a consultant, I was pulled into daily/weekly meetings to review progress. It always went off topic and never lasted less than 2 hours. Well, I was on a day rate, so the contract got extended more than once - not my fault, as I explained to the customer - you asked for the meetings.
In the olden days, learning assember & the microcode was essential to producing efficient code. For example, Data General Nova's had a "Jump Through" instruction. If you jumped through a certain register, it would pass you to the address in the register and then increment it. Fantasic efficient use of code.
I am sure there are similar 'shortcuts' that the "greybeards" know and use. But anyone new, learning from college courses, probably won't learn about this, produce iniefficient (relatively speaking) code and get disillusioned when their entry is rejected.
So, who is educating the newbies on the best practices for efficiency?
Alan
I've been "into" PCs ever since the first IBM PC with twin floppies. And the Compaq luggable (I had one of the first in the UK). Who remembers replacing the CPU with the NEC chip that ran 20% faster?
I've tinkered with Command.com, done wizard stuff with DOS internals and wrote some pretty good s/w for my company (DEC) when they had PATHworks on VMS and it ran really slow due to following MS restrictions. One of which was that for a .BAT file, command.com opened the file, read the command, closed the file, executed the command, opened the file, found the next line, read it, closed it. Open & close on a VMS system (where networked .BAT files were stored) was very very slow. so, in a networked PATHWorks environment, it could take 10-20 minutes for the clients to execute login commands. I wrote some code and got that 20 minutes down to about 5 seconds, just by keeping the files open.
And yes, my son has had his own PC since he was 6 in 1990. He would play games (Sonic the Headgehog was a favourite) while I coded next to him.
Tea, the best tea is M&S decaffinated tea. [This may introduce some flaming]. It's smooth, strong tasting and has no caffeine to harm the body.
Onto things one can do with old kits. Back in 1979, we had Data General Nova 3's & Nova 1200's running RDOS - a single user text based system - and twin 5.25" floppies. I managed to get it to run a 2 user database system in Fortran with full screen data display (using assembler to put the data on the screen where it needed to be) and introduced overlays so I could get more code running. I guarenteed access to any data record in less than 1 second - and it did it. [Eat your heart out DBASE & Oracle - I had it first!!!]
I imported the original Compaq luggable computer from the USA before they set up a UK franchise. I had to change the P/S from 110v to 230 - and guess what, it was just a switch inside the P/S. So, easy peasy. And a lovely machine too - very tough, but heavy. One winter I got stuck and needed to get the the bottom of a hill carrying it in it's nylon case. So, I just sat on it and sledded down the hill. Fun days!
Alan
I used Netbeui to create DHCP for DECnet under DOS - unheard of at the time. I loaded the Netbeui stack, connected to a local server (VMS machine running PATHWorks), got a DECnet address, unloaded the NetBeui stack and loaded DECnet. It worked great. Coopers & Lybrand, in London used it.
Shame that everyone moved to TCP/IP soon afterwards.
Alan
I tried to send you a story, but all I got back was:
Generating server: AM7P189MB0760.EURP189.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM
oncall@theregister.com
Remote server returned '533 5.4.0 Your message seems to have triggered our junk email filters. Could you edit your message and try again?'
It's just some text. No I am not going to edit it and try again. Fix your process
Alan
I don't mind losing POP3, but I need access to the large number of PST files that I archive old mails to.
I haven't tested the new version (I've seen it on another machine and didn't like it) but my existing system runs around 15 email accounts, all nicely segregated and visitble. I don't want something that looks like Outlook on Android.
Back in the day, I was working for DEC and also (in my spare time) wrote a nice little text editor called EasyEdit. Because I was in software services and knew some of the developers of DEC DOS products, I made sure it was compatible (so, a decent editor for their email product for example). One day, DEC sold the email product to a client, who knew my s/w and wanted a license for it.
We came to a very amicable (for me) agreement. I didn't need a new car (I had company ones), but it kept me in new PCs for a while.
Alan
I've been in the market for a decent laptop to do photo editing. I found that the AMD processors were better as all their cores are 'performance' ones and therefore I seem to get more done for a given price point.
I also had one laptop (sent back) where the perfomance cores turned themselves off and everything was running off the slower ones. That was a bit of a shock!
Alan