windows nt

Happy late birthday, OS/2

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Twenty-five years ago this month, on April 2, IBM announced its new PS/2 computers and a new multitasking operating system to run on (most of) them–OS/2. They even lured a bunch of the actors from M*A*S*H to do an ad campaign for them.

It didn’t seem like it at the time, but that was the beginning of the end of IBM’s PC business.
Read more

No easy solutions to the .NET Framework

Dave Farquhar Windows , ,

I had this discussion this week with longtime reader Jim `, which I present here in hopes of it being useful to someone. When I don’t have time to write well, maybe I can at least post something of a little use.

Read more

Microsoft’s leaked roadmap

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , , , ,

Microsoft is getting aggressive with Windows release dates, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to put a damper on future sales.

Windows 8 is coming out in August, which was a poorly kept secret anyway. That can’t be helping Windows 7 sales, but at this point I think Microsoft is mostly concerned about new computer sales and corporate sales. What’s more concerning to me–initially–is the revelation that Windows 9 will be out in November 2014.
Read more

Was CP/M overrated?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Was CP/M overrated?

Veteran tech journalist Dan Tynan recently published a list of 10 overrated technology products, and CP/M was on his list. But was CP/M overrated? I want to dig into that question a bit.

I think everyone knows the story of how IBM almost used CP/M as the operating system for its PC, but ended up using an upstart product from a small company named Microsoft instead. We’ll probably never know exactly what happened, seeing as the author of CP/M is dead and his business partner is no longer able to recollect those events from the 1980 timeframe, and IBM and Bill Gates have no reason to embarrass themselves by revisiting the story.

But CP/M was the first and most popular operating system for early 8-bit computers, so people who used it remember it fondly, and the way Microsoft steamrolled it made Gary Kildall and his operating system folk heroes to underdog lovers everywhere. Even people who never used it and weren’t even born when Kildall’s company ceased to exist have at least a vague idea of what it was.
Read more

Toggle between two hosts files with a simple script

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , ,

A longtime reader wrote in asking if it was possible to easily toggle between two hosts files. There are several possible uses for this. When I’m at home, I need to address my web site by its internal, private IP address. On the road, that private address obviously doesn’t work. He wants something like this for other reasons; I believe he’s blocking ad servers with his hosts file and needs to unblock one or more servers temporarily for select sites to work properly.

This solution would make my Computer Science 203 professor rescind the B I received in his class if he saw it, but it works, and I don’t think he reads this blog anyway.

Read more

Microsoft: No x86 apps for ARM

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So, The Register reports that Windows on ARM will not have compatibility with apps compiled for x86. Intel has been saying this for a while, while Microsoft has been mum. So now we know.

There are arguments both for and against having an x86 emulation layer.
Read more

My first really bad day in IT

Dave Farquhar security, War Stories , , , , , , ,

Next weekend is Labor Day weekend. I can’t remember if it was one Thursday or two Thursdays before Labor Day weekend in 1997, but one of those two days happened to be the beginning of the first crisis of my career.

Whichever Thursday it was, it was getting close to midnight when my phone rang. It was Max. The print server wasn’t working. That happened a lot. That server had IBM’s Services for Macintosh on it, which never worked all that well, and, worse, tended to make the rest of the server act up a lot. That in and of itself shouldn’t have been a crisis. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Read more

Milestone! I’ve been pirated!

Dave Farquhar Personal, Writing , , , ,

In searching for the abstract of my book, I found more than I expected: What appeared to be a pirated PDF copy of the book in its entirety. What’s worse is that it appeared #1 in Google’s search. Numbers 2 and 3 were various pages on my site, #4 was my Wikipedia profile page, #5 was O’Reilly’s page, and #6 was Amazon’s page. So it’s easier to download a pirated copy of my book than it is to buy it. (It’s $2.03 at Amazon right now. Maybe I should buy some copies.)

I’m having trouble deciding whether that bothers me. The likelihood of me ever making another 25 cents off that book is slim. There was some talk at one time of releasing the book under some kind of Creative Commons license, but I never received the paperwork so I guess they changed their mind. As far as I know, it’s still under copyright.

And the copyright doesn’t belong to me, so ultimately it’s not up to me. I wrote it, but O’Reilly owns the copyright. So I e-mailed O’Reilly to ask them if they care.
Read more

Windows, ARM, emulation, misconceptions and misremembered history

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I keep reading stuff about Windows and ARM and, well, I think people just aren’t remembering history.

I’m not saying that Windows 8 on ARM will save the world, or even change it substantially. It probably won’t, since Microsoft tends not to get things right the first time. But will I automatically write off the project? No. It could prove useful for something other than what it was originally intended. That happens a lot.

But I’m more interested in clearing up the misinformation than in trying to predict the future.
Read more

Disadvantages of Windows 98 and 98SE

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , , , , , ,

Many years ago, I wrote about the disadvantages of Windows 3.1 because I started noticing people searching for that. Now, I see people asking the same question about Windows 98. I spent 9 months of my life ripping Windows 98 apart and putting it back together again and writing about it, so I know it well.

As much of an improvement as Windows 98 was over Windows 3.1 and even Windows 95, it, too, is feeling the effects of time. Windows 98SE was the best of the Windows 9x series (better than its successor, Windows ME), but there are better things to run today.

Read more