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Radio
07-13-2012, 06:20 PM
Firefox was up until a few months ago my browser of choice. Then they decided to no longer support Windows 2000, which is the OS on my primary radio station machine, and the one I use to support ORR.net.

I built that computer myself from used stuff people gave me. And it still runs along at 1 GHz with 1/2 Gig of RAM. Plenty for what I do with it.

Time for a new browser that runs on old machines.

Firefox recommends Opera software's free browser by the same name. I'm running Opera now on the main system and my 8 year old Panasonic Toughbook CF-50, also a Win2K machine.

There does not seem to be any need for plug ins, although many are available. I like the "zoom" feature which allows old eyes to use the laptop with ease. I like the way the spell checker works and the tabs and panels features similar to the latest stuff you get with IE or Firefox. It seems to run a little faster that Firefox v12, the last version supporting win2k.

So if you are in need of an updated, free, legacy supporting browser, you might try Opera.

NN5I
07-13-2012, 06:28 PM
Yes; Mozart, Puccini, Donizetti, Joe Green, and many others wrote excellent operas.

KF5BET
07-14-2012, 08:47 AM
One of our computers at work died and I had to buy a new one. The new one came with Windows 7 while all of our other machines are running XP pro.

I had the hardest time configuring the new computer with all of our software since we do not upgrade the software every time a new version comes out (we do not see the need for that!).

Anyway, finally got Autocad to work by starting the program by using the compatability mode within 7. Then I could not find a driver for our HP plotter. Finally found a driver that a guy in Germany had that said he got to work.

Granted our plotter is 9 years old, but we just had it serviced a couple of years ago. There is NOTHING wrong with our plotter, but because it is old, HP does not support it anymore. Sad that we might have to buy another 10k plotter because of compatability issues.

N3LYT
07-14-2012, 07:33 PM
I don't use 7 but I have heard horror stories about drivers. I use Chrome as a browser pretty simple program.

NN5I
07-14-2012, 07:35 PM
There is NOTHING wrong with our plotter, but because it is old, HP does not support it anymore.

HP is notorious for that. They abandon printers, plotters, scanners, who knows what all. That's (part of) why I never buy HP if any other brand will serve.

Part of the trouble, of course, is Microsoft's failure to maintain upward/downward compatibility. In mainframes, we never had that problem, with IBM at least. Essentially any application program that would run in OS/360 in 1965 still runs in OS/360's modern successors. Shame on Microsoft, and shame on HP.

Radio
07-14-2012, 07:53 PM
Part of the trouble, of course, is Microsoft's failure to maintain upward/downward compatibility.

It's not a failure, it is by design. It costs money to support old products, and I understand withdrawing support. But if you write keys into your code so that new apps will not even load on older OS, even though they would likely run, then the customer is required to upgrade their systems.

NN5I
07-14-2012, 08:26 PM
It's not a failure, it is by design. It costs money to support old products, and I understand withdrawing support. But if you write keys into your code so that new apps will not even load on older OS, even though they would likely run, then the customer is required to upgrade their systems.

Some truth in that, but some misconception also. All that would be necessary is to assure backward compatibility in the OS's driver interfaces. Then it would never be necessary for anyone to provide new drivers for use in new operating systems. This is actually rather easy to do, and Microsoft could have done it from the beginning, as IBM did on mainframes. Had they done it, any device that ever worked in some old Windows would still work in any new Windows, using the same old drivers. Unfortunately, Windows was designed by dilettantes, not by pros.

That wouldn't mean that the driver interfaces in Windows couldn't be enhanced. New features could still be added from time to time in the OS's driver interfaces -- but old drivers that hadn't ever needed those new features would still work the same way they always had.