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Well said Mark

My first printer cost more than my Apple II+. It was a TI 810 wide carriage dot matrix. No descenders on the characters. We ran the BPI Accounting system. I then became an Eagle Computer dealer and a Leading Edge dealer. Sold Eagle CP/M machines. Sold Daewoo Computers (almost IBM PC compatible). WordStar was my 'word processing' program of choice.

I started programming in college on a VAX system. Back then, I didn't even have a monitor. You just typed on the keyboard and the printer would spit out what you typed. They you would compile the code and run it.
I was so excited when they added monitors so I could finally cut, copy, and paste! WooHoo!
I remember the Leading Edge computers. They were assembled down the road in Canton, MA.
I used Wordstar on my Compaq portable. (more like luggable) It weighed 35 pounds, had dual 5.25" floppy drives and a tiny monitor.
I eventually replaced one of the floppy drives with a 20MB Hard Drive.
This is what it looked like:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/compaq_portable.shtml

We started, like you, with the TI R/O printer/keyboard IIRC. It was part way through this class the Comp Sci folks allowed us mere engineers access to the 'tubes.' We discovered we could 'IM' the guy on the tube next to us. Exciting times.....talking from one terminal to another in real time. I did the punch cards originally. The System 360 was shared by administration. During registration it was really frustrating to punch the cards, run them through the reader, then wait 24 hours before you discovered you had a comma in the wrong spot.


I went to a printer school at Leading Edge. I remember driving on 128(Technology Highway?). The inside berm was an extra lane.

I sold a couple Leading Edge luggables. The ultimate in portability. I took one home for the weekend. Ran an extension cord to the picnic table. Computing outdoors!

A buddy of mine had the Kaypro 10. We set up a dBase-based dial-up BBS system for Porsche dealers to list their cars so they could check each other's inventory. Ended up doing restaurant and movie reviews. I ran the local Apple club BBS on my company Apple II+ after working hours.

using a card punch and layout sheets. I soon figured out that it wasn't for me and moved to the dark side to maintain the hardware.

It wasn't until I left the Air Force (where I worked on F-15 computer systems) that I went back to school and got that formal training. My instructors hated me because I usually had a functional program ready before I even had the algorithm written up.

I'm not a coder today more because I don't want to be, though I admit there are a lot of apps I wish were available.

My only programming training was a quarter of Intro to Programming.

Used CCA Database Manager to set up a database, then programmed screens and reports in Applesoft. I built a job quote program.

Did a payroll in dBase II for an Eagle CP/M customer.

I haven't done any coding since early 2000's. Been keeping plenty busy setting up and managing networks for local government agencies and small business.

It was a 386DX that the base exchange had [mistakenly] marked down to $599. They thought they were marking down the 286s...

That thing lasted almost 10 years before the power supply gave out.

The funny thing is although I may not always agree with each of you at different times, I respect your opinions because you explain your positions well. I think it has something to do with our age and our experiences.
I have no patience for the trolls who post things like "iOS - Fail" and "Windows 8 will fail like Vista." with no explanation.

I immediately downgrade my opinion of a poster's knowledge when they say Vista 'failed' without acknowledging the failure was due to bad marketing and not a technical issue.

created by trying to incorporate bad marketing decisions into the software - kind of like the Metro GUI for a desktop is a VERY BAD marketing decision being forced on the Win 8 OS in a technical way. The biggest one was the marketing people forcing the release of Vista before it was really technically ready.

... were the simple fact that it lacked nearly all of the drivers it needed even for basic operation. Until SP1 Vista was seriously crippled by its simple inability to use almost every peripheral device and even in-box components at more than a primitive level. Vista didn't really come into its own until SP1.

I know. I had to use it myself in order to support any clients who might have chosen to replace their XP with it.

Speaking of iOS and Win8--well, iOS has obviously made its mark as a successful OS despite the naysayers and iOS 6 will clearly take that up another notch. Win8 isn't fully released yet and I won't deny that many techies absolutely hate the Metro interface; but I do believe those techies are going to find out that their users will like the change, especially if those same users start using Microsoft's Surface devices with RT and Pro.
Again noting that this is a personal opinion, I believe that the integration between RT and Pro will be much like Apple's iOS to OS X--not totally obvious yet almost seamless at swapping files back and forth between same-name applications. As an example, iBooks lets you read a story between several different devices without having to search for the last page you read on a different device; iWork lets you pick up a file you were working on with your desktop and review/edit that work on the iPad without any form of manual synchronization--the two OSes become little more than extensions of each other. While the Windows equivalents may be a little different, I fully expect that integration to be fully as seamless--especially compared to Android where nearly everything has to be synched manually and often with physical media.

I'm not one to arbitrarily call something a success or failure until I see practical reviews or work with it myself and can offer an educated experience. I won't deny that I have strong opinions about things but those opinions are almost always based on personal experience.

When computers were sold with Vista pre-installed, they worked perfectly well. Problems usually cropped up when people tried to upgrade their existing systems from XP to Vista before checking for working drivers. In addition, some folks had unreasonable expectations that their 10 year old SCSI flat bed scanner would work without checking for drivers first (for example).
Even Windows ME worked fine when purchased with a new system. I still have a Dell Dimension 4100 that came with Win ME. It is sitting under my desk as I write this. (I have a hard time throwing computers away.) It never gave me any issues. Why? Because the computer was designed around the OS.

They marketed it as an upgrade for XP, but the minimum system requirements were even more inadequate than MS usually recommends. If you had an six or seven year old XP system, it wasn't going run V worth a darn, and hardware manufacturers weren't going to write drivers for older hardware they no longer produced.

Unfortunately, the average consumer thought that their computer would be magically faster with a Vista upgrade.
I'm not apologizing for Microsoft. They did a bad thing by claiming that Vista would work on the minimum specs they stated.
I took it with a grain of salt.
When friends and colleagues with XP boxes asked me about upgrading their older computers to Vista, their usual reason was to speed up their computer. Maybe Microsoft claimed it would. Who knows? I would always recommend that they first try a fresh install of Win XP. They were usually thrilled with the results.

... but I do remember (and I'm sure the data is searchable on Google) the hundreds of blog postings and tens of thousands of comments about how even many of those machines seemed underpowered and, at least until SP1, downgraded back to XP. By nearly every review that I read, Vista SP1 should have been the release version of Vista.

In my view, Microsoft panicked when Longhorn wasn't progressing and they rushed Vista out as a filler after 5 years of nothing more than service packs on XP. I would almost say that Win7 is the culmination of the Longhorn project, except that Longhorn was supposed to be a full rewrite of Windows to make it leaner and more efficient (they did cut about 4gig of legacy code somehow) but then to read where in '11 a security patch was covering a Win'95 vulnerability that was supposedly already inaccessible says that it wasn't a re-write but merely another layer of new features and graphical fluff pretty much over the old code. Windows has gotten faster not through good design, but rather by benefit of improved hardware. Again, that is my view.

My expectations were reasonable, but the media had a field day with the "Vista Ready" stickers on so many machines.

That was another marketing decision. MS had several different hardware certifications. These included variations on Vista Ready, Vista Compatible, Vista Capable, Vista Premium Plus, etc. Only one (I don't recall which) mandated hardware that had any business running the OS. The others allowed manufacturers to slap a Vista logo on the carton when the system included the typical minimum hardware specs.

It's still running XP. - and it works beautifully.
Did I expect it to work better with Vista? No.
How did I know this? I researched the drivers and ran the Vista compatibility application. The drivers weren't there and the Vista app told me that I would have issues.
A sticker is not enough to convince me.

nt

.

Before you could upgrade, Microsoft generated a report for the consumer to review on what will not work (missing drivers, not enough memory, sub-optimal processor, etc.). You could run the report even before you purchased Vista. So all I can surmise is that most people believed "Vista Capable" more than a report that said "This will not work."???
I am not trying to defend Microsoft. What I am trying to say is the consumer should pay attention and do a little homework before jumping in. Call someone who knows more about computers.
It reminds me of the time I was having trouble starting my car. After I tried to turn the engine over 6 times, the dashboard display said, "STOP! Do not attempt to start the car again!" That is what is known as a "hint and a half".
Take some responsibility. Read the report and act accordingly.

... doesn't want to do research. If they see a label that says "Vista Ready" or something of the sort, then they're going to take that label at its word. They just want it to work, work right and work NOW. This has probably been Microsoft's biggest issue ever since Dos itself; they expect the user to be computer savvy when so many of their users--enterprise and at home--are users only, not technicians. Steve Jobs realized that the real customer was the user, not the support staff; that's why the MacOS and OS X have been so much more user-friendly even if they did do things differently from Windows.

I now I NEVER saw ANY advertising by Microsoft down here that you COULD get such a report, and there was none at the Microsoft stands of their software in any of the retail shops about getting such a report, and I didn't see it mentioned on the side of the few retail packets of Vista I checked. Also, the few times I went to the official Vista website I saw no obvious mention of such an option. Thus I wonder how people were supposed to be able to do that.

Mind you, IF Microsoft did publicise such a service, they would've had a lot lower level of sales of Vista as all the people who found out the hard way would not have bought a copy.

It showed up in several places.
1. You could go to Microsoft's Vista site and run the report before purchasing the OS.
2. When you tried to upgrade Vista from an install disc, the report ran before you could proceed with the installation.
3. If you purchased a "Vista Capable" computer from Dell, (as I did) there was a link to the run the report on your desktop.
A similar report ran automatically if you upgraded Vista to Win 7.
& a similar report shows up before you install Windows 8 CP and RP.

the compatibility report ran automatically when you attempted to upgrade from XP to Vista.
I guess as the old saying goes, you can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink. You can also present the average consumer with a report but you can't make him read before clicking OK.

Microsoft has always posted both minimum and recommended system requirements.
You can still see them on Microsoft's site.
The minimum requirements come with a caveat; "Product functionality and graphics may vary based on your system configuration. Some features may require advanced or additional hardware."
Maybe they should have prefaced it with "Cheap is cheap".
I would never purchase anything that barely meets the requirements.
Then again, there are a lot of consumers who buy a $400 laptop and expect miracles.
Maybe Apple has it right. Don't allow anyone else to build a computer for your system because they will inevitably screw it up.