IE6 countdown
Espen Koht
Microsoft is here to help: http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html
Tim Ward
news:ehk20-10163C....@nnrp.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
> For the benefit of the the 'we code for IE6 because we have to' crowd.
> Microsoft is here to help: http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html
I didn't notice there the free services being offered to rewrite the
corporate applications that are usually the reason for IE6 being mandated?
--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Limited - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Jon Anderson
> For the benefit of the the 'we code for IE6 because we have to' crowd.
> Microsoft is here to help: http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html
This doesn't help at all. But it is interesting!
Jon
Ben Hutchings
> For the benefit of the the 'we code for IE6 because we have to' crowd.
> Microsoft is here to help: http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html
There seems to be a rather obvious mistake in the banner code. It
links to an Internet Explorer download page, not Firefox.
Ben.
--
Ben Hutchings
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
- Albert Camus
Tim Ward
news:slrnin5hif.2dl.b...@decadent.org.uk...
>
> There seems to be a rather obvious mistake in the banner code. It
> links to an Internet Explorer download page, not Firefox.
Um, which is an IE6 application more likely to work better with?
(1) A later version of IE
(2) Firefox
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Ward) wrote:
> "Ben Hutchings" <ben-publ...@decadent.org.uk> wrote in
> message news:slrnin5hif.2dl.b...@decadent.org.uk...
> >
> > There seems to be a rather obvious mistake in the banner code. It
> > links to an Internet Explorer download page, not Firefox.
>
> Um, which is an IE6 application more likely to work better with?
>
> (1) A later version of IE
> (2) Firefox
>
> ?
Bit of a toss-up I suspect. Most sites I've found recently which don't
work in IE6 do work in Firefox, and IE8 too.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
Tim Ward
<rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in message
news:CLWdnXNPPeNqU-_Q...@giganews.com...
My question was about sites that *do* work in IE6.
The Natural Philosopher
> Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
>
> <rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:CLWdnXNPPeNqU-_Q...@giganews.com...
>> In article <8tfvf4...@mid.individual.net>, t...@brettward.co.uk (Tim
>> Ward) wrote:
>>
>>> "Ben Hutchings" <ben-publ...@decadent.org.uk> wrote in
>>> message news:slrnin5hif.2dl.b...@decadent.org.uk...
>>>> There seems to be a rather obvious mistake in the banner code. It
>>>> links to an Internet Explorer download page, not Firefox.
>>> Um, which is an IE6 application more likely to work better with?
>>>
>>> (1) A later version of IE
>>> (2) Firefox
>>>
>>> ?
>> Bit of a toss-up I suspect. Most sites I've found recently which don't
>> work in IE6 do work in Firefox, and IE8 too.
>
> My question was about sites that *do* work in IE6.
>
'quirks mode'
Which has been emulated well enough on all later browsers. In short I
have not seen a problem for several years where a site worked in IE6 but
not firefox.
SOCGEN covered warrants site used to be the worst offender.
There are still sites that will only work with IE, of course..ones that
use browser specific scripting or CSS usually. But if it works in IE6,
it will probably work in 7,8, 9 or whatever the latest crap is.
And with Chrome(Google), Opera( Mac OSX) and Firefox now being a serious
market share, those sites tend to get fixed.
Fevric J. Glandules
> There are still sites that will only work with IE,
The distinction needs to be made between those sites that
*can't* work on $browser, and those that *refuse* to work
with $browser.
Tim Ward
news:il0dib$pnd$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Slashdot appeared for some time to be deliberately crippled so as to be
useless on IE, but this got fixed at the latest revamp a few weeks ago. I
have however got out of the habit of reading it in the meantime.
--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Limited - www.brettward.co.uk
Fevric J. Glandules
> Slashdot appeared for some time to be deliberately crippled so as to be
> useless on IE, but this got fixed at the latest revamp a few weeks ago. I
> have however got out of the habit of reading it in the meantime.
I've never quite "got" slashdot, IYKWIM. I'll follow a link there,
but I never *go* there.
Tim Ward
I used to read it when I worked at Microsoft ... now why was that I wonder,
was I perhaps trying to wind up whoever read the logs, at both ends?
Al Grant
> The distinction needs to be made between those sites that
> *can't* work on $browser, and those that *refuse* to work
> with $browser.
How do you draw that distinction? E.g. where would you
put a site that used Flash and wouldn't work on an iPad?
Or one that uses a lot of Javascript and doesn't give
acceptable response on IE?
Mark Goodge
typed:
>"Espen Koht" <eh...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
>news:ehk20-10163C....@nnrp.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
>> For the benefit of the the 'we code for IE6 because we have to' crowd.
>> Microsoft is here to help: http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html
>
>I didn't notice there the free services being offered to rewrite the
>corporate applications that are usually the reason for IE6 being mandated?
This whole "The application is coded for IE6 and it would be too expensive
to change" attitude strikes me as utterly bizarre. Did it really never
occur to anyone in that situation that IE6 would eventually be superseded?
Didn't the fact that it's got the number "6" in the name give a rather big
clue that it's part of a series, and hence might not be the last? Or are
all these applications written by people who had only just discovered the
Internet when IE6 was already out and thought that the "6" had as much
significance after "IE" as the "2000" which follows the word "Grecian"?
Saying "We can't upgrade from IE6 because we have applications that require
it" is like saying "We can't replace our Morris Minor company cars because
the car park is designed specifically for them". It's not an excuse, it's
an outright admission of corporate incompetance.
Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk
Mark Murray
My bank insists that its "banking plus" service is IE specific.
If I make FF lie and claim to be IE, it seems to work OK.
They've coded it to insist on getting IE, but haven't noticed
that this isn't necessary.
M
--
Mark "No Nickname" Murray
Notable nebbish, extreme generalist.
Tim Ward
news:14l7n69do5dd8pum8...@news.markshouse.net...
>
> This whole "The application is coded for IE6 and it would be too expensive
> to change" attitude strikes me as utterly bizarre. Did it really never
> occur to anyone in that situation that IE6 would eventually be superseded?
> Didn't the fact that it's got the number "6" in the name give a rather big
> clue that it's part of a series, and hence might not be the last?
I think it might be something magic to do with the number 6.
VB6 applications were hanging around long after you couldn't buy VB6 any
more, ditto MSVC6.
Maybe it's when something gets to version 6 that it has matured enough that
lots of people write applications for it?
Richard Kettlewell
> "Mark Goodge" <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>> This whole "The application is coded for IE6 and it would be too expensive
>> to change" attitude strikes me as utterly bizarre. Did it really never
>> occur to anyone in that situation that IE6 would eventually be superseded?
>> Didn't the fact that it's got the number "6" in the name give a rather big
>> clue that it's part of a series, and hence might not be the last?
>
> I think it might be something magic to do with the number 6.
>
> VB6 applications were hanging around long after you couldn't buy VB6 any
> more, ditto MSVC6.
>
> Maybe it's when something gets to version 6 that it has matured enough that
> lots of people write applications for it?
IE6 lasted longer, i.e. it was the most recent available version of IE
for longer than its predecessors were. Could be as simple as that.
Espen Koht
"Tim Ward" <t...@brettward.co.uk> wrote:
> "Espen Koht" <eh...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:ehk20-10163C....@nnrp.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
> > For the benefit of the the 'we code for IE6 because we have to' crowd.
> > Microsoft is here to help: http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html
>
> I didn't notice there the free services being offered to rewrite the
> corporate applications that are usually the reason for IE6 being mandated?
Corporate users using IE6 on intranets to run corporate applications,
isn't that internal matter? Or am I misunderstanding your term
'corporate applications'?
Naich
> "Fevric J. Glandules" <f...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:il0dib$pnd$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> > The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> >
> >> There are still sites that will only work with IE,
> >
> > The distinction needs to be made between those sites that
> > *can't* work on $browser, and those that *refuse* to work
> > with $browser.
> Slashdot appeared for some time to be deliberately crippled so as to be
> useless on IE, but this got fixed at the latest revamp a few weeks ago. I
> have however got out of the habit of reading it in the meantime.
Since they did the last change, it doesn't work properly on FF/XP for me.
I also can't go back to the previous version, like I could last time they
did a major update. It's quite disappointing. Another one that doesn't
work but should is Ebay - broken for Chrome on Linux in quite a few
annoying ways. I guess in the rush to get all the latest whizz bangs, the
quality control is slipping down the priority list.
Naich.
--
http://naich.net ..... My rubbish blog
http://asshol.es ..... Stupidity in pictures
http://sodwork.com ... A waste of time
Motto: Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.
bob
wrote:
I think this is a symptom of a wider trend in corporate computer
provisions, though. Basically for your average office based employee,
the combination of XP (with IE6) and Office 2000 was the point where
usability, stability and cost hit the sweet spot, basically becoming
the "Cobra Mk3". Companies decided that they could reduce their IT
costs by standardising on a single platform for everyone, and when the
follow on versions were released, they felt the benefits of upgrading
weren't worth the cost of breaking their standards any more. Now that
we have 10 years of inertia behind this basic combo, I can understand
why companies simply don't want to hear the message that IE6 is dead,
and will come up with any number of feeble excuses to avoid
upgrading. Of course this presents MS with a bigger problem because
basically their main customer base doesn't want a new product from
them.
Robin
Fevric J. Glandules
> On Mar 6, 4:42 pm, "Fevric J. Glandules" <f...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> The distinction needs to be made between those sites that
>> *can't* work on $browser, and those that *refuse* to work
>> with $browser.
>
> How do you draw that distinction?
I'm talking about sites that refuse to play ball unless the user-agent
string is something they find acceptable.
Fevric J. Glandules
> I think it might be something magic to do with the number 6.
>
> VB6 applications were hanging around long after you couldn't buy VB6 any
> more, ditto MSVC6.
>
> Maybe it's when something gets to version 6 that it has matured enough that
> lots of people write applications for it?
Traditionally for M$ it's when they get to version 3 that it actually
works. So possibly it's at version 6 that it works *well*.
To translate commercial version numbers into FLOSS version numbers,
divide by three.
Ben Hutchings
> "Fevric J. Glandules" <f...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:il0f7r$dgb$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> Tim Ward wrote:
>>
>>> Slashdot appeared for some time to be deliberately crippled so as to be
>>> useless on IE, but this got fixed at the latest revamp a few weeks ago. I
>>> have however got out of the habit of reading it in the meantime.
>>
>> I've never quite "got" slashdot, IYKWIM. I'll follow a link there,
>> but I never *go* there.
>
> I used to read it when I worked at Microsoft ... now why was that I wonder,
> was I perhaps trying to wind up whoever read the logs, at both ends?
You, wind people up? Surely not.
Tim Ward
>
> To translate commercial version numbers into FLOSS version numbers,
> divide by three.
Well indeed, a commercial product that was still at 0.9.8.something several
years after first launch would look a bit odd! Different cultures.
Espen Koht
"Tim Ward" <t...@brettward.co.uk> wrote:
> "Fevric J. Glandules" <f...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:il2egt$7fb$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> >
> > To translate commercial version numbers into FLOSS version numbers,
> > divide by three.
>
> Well indeed, a commercial product that was still at 0.9.8.something several
> years after first launch would look a bit odd! Different cultures.
If they charged for it it would be version 9.8.
bob
wrote:
> Tim Ward wrote:
> > I think it might be something magic to do with the number 6.
>
> > VB6 applications were hanging around long after you couldn't buy VB6 any
> > more, ditto MSVC6.
>
> > Maybe it's when something gets to version 6 that it has matured enough that
> > lots of people write applications for it?
>
> Traditionally for M$ it's when they get to version 3 that it actually
> works. So possibly it's at version 6 that it works *well*.
Except that isn't Vista version 6 of windows?
Robin
Tim Fitzmaurice
> Except that isn't Vista version 6 of windows?
If you take Windows 3.1 as the one with a version number, then Win95, Win
98, NT, Win2000 and WinME, plus XP all came before Vista - but there
are two lineages in there if I remember correctly so it depends
on what lineages you count and how I guess.
Tim
--
When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart
ICQ: 5178568
Roland Perry
at 10:32:54 on Tue, 8 Mar 2011, Tim Fitzmaurice <tj...@cam.ac.uk>
remarked:
>> Except that isn't Vista version 6 of windows?
>
>If you take Windows 3.1 as the one with a version number, then Win95,
>Win 98, NT, Win2000 and WinME, plus XP all came before Vista - but
>there are two lineages in there if I remember correctly so it depends
>on what lineages you count and how I guess.
Windows 3.0 was the third version of Windows... although version 1 had
very little distribution in Europe (vendors either preferred GEM, or
were overtaken by the announcement of Windows 2).
The first "proper" version of Windows (in terms of memory and process
management) was Windows 2.11/386, of which Windows 3 was in effect a
repackaging.
I regard WinME as the same basic version as Win98, so from a technical
(rather than marketing) point of view the current product has had these
steps:
1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
2 Win 95
3 Win 98 & ME
4 Win2K
5 XP
6 Vista
7 Win7
--
Roland Perry
Eleanor Blair
>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
>2 Win 95
>3 Win 98 & ME
>4 Win2K
>5 XP
>6 Vista
>7 Win7
I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
Roland Perry
8 Mar 2011, Eleanor Blair <ele...@the-blairs.co.uk> remarked:
>>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
>>2 Win 95
>>3 Win 98 & ME
>>4 Win2K
>>5 XP
>>6 Vista
>>7 Win7
>
>I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
That's a legitimate point of view. It involves Win2K being in effect
NT5. Apparently the first version of NT was v3 (go figure) so taking
into account the convergence of the consumer and "business" versions, a
fuller chart might be:
Consumer Business Converged
1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3 ?OS/2
2 Win 95 NT3
3 Win 98 NT4
4 Win ME Win2K (aka NT5)
& Server 2000
5 Server 2003 XP
6 Vista
7 Win7
For some reason, the one I still have most copies of is Win98, although
I've only got one PC that still boots into it (on account of it also
having a very old peripheral whose drivers were never compatible with
later versions). I have zero copies of Vista running (but one set of OEM
CDs), and only one Win7. XP is by far the most popular in the household
(mixture of bundled and retail/upgrade copies).
--
Roland Perry
Mark Ayliffe
Eleanor Blair <ele...@the-blairs.co.uk> illuminated us with:
> Roland Perry wrote:
>>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
>>2 Win 95
>>3 Win 98 & ME
>>4 Win2K
>>5 XP
>>6 Vista
>>7 Win7
>
> I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
Although this isn't a MS page, I think it is correct & shows the full
lineage:
http://www.nirmaltv.com/2009/08/17/windows-os-version-numbers/
Microsoft pages tend only to show things since win 2000.
--
Mark
Real email address |
is mark at | Never try to leap a chasm in two jumps.
ayliffe dot org |
bob
> In message <alpine.LSU.2.00.1103081030260.1...@hermes-1.csi.cam.ac.uk>,
If you go by the version numbers windows actually ships under (you can
check your own with the about windows box under the help menu on
windows explorer), the versions are 1 and 2 are 1.x and 2.x, 3.0, 3.1,
3.11, NT3.5 are all 3.x; 95, 98, ME and NT4 are all 4.x, 2000 and XP
are all 5.x, Vista is 6.x. The internet suggests that Windows 7 is
acutally numbered as 6.1, but I don't have a computer to check.
Robin
Roland Perry
Mar 2011, Mark Ayliffe <mark.see.sig.f...@ayliffe.invalid>
remarked:
>>>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
>>>2 Win 95
>>>3 Win 98 & ME
>>>4 Win2K
>>>5 XP
>>>6 Vista
>>>7 Win7
>>
>> I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
>
>Although this isn't a MS page, I think it is correct & shows the full
>lineage:
>
>http://www.nirmaltv.com/2009/08/17/windows-os-version-numbers/
Thus:
Windows 1
Windows 2
Windows 3, NT 3.1, WfWG 3.11, NT 3.5, NT 3.51
Windows 95, NT4, Win 98, Win 98SE, Win ME
Windows 2000, Win XP.
Windows Vista, Windows 7
Which makes us on version 6 (a recurring theme).
--
Roland Perry
Roland Perry
<bb2f8781-864f-43b1...@dn9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, at
04:26:45 on Tue, 8 Mar 2011, bob <rcp...@gmail.com> remarked:
>The internet suggests that Windows 7 is
>acutally numbered as 6.1, but I don't have a computer to check.
That's what my Win7 PC reports.
--
Roland Perry
bob
> In message <guih48-9pm....@news.virginmedia.com>, at 12:10:24 on Tue, 8
> Mar 2011, Mark Ayliffe <mark.see.sig.for.real.addr...@ayliffe.invalid>
> remarked:
>
> >>>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
> >>>2 Win 95
> >>>3 Win 98 & ME
> >>>4 Win2K
> >>>5 XP
> >>>6 Vista
> >>>7 Win7
>
> >> I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
>
> >Although this isn't a MS page, I think it is correct & shows the full
> >lineage:
>
> >http://www.nirmaltv.com/2009/08/17/windows-os-version-numbers/
>
> Thus:
>
> Windows 1
> Windows 2
> Windows 3, NT 3.1, WfWG 3.11, NT 3.5, NT 3.51
> Windows 95, NT4, Win 98, Win 98SE, Win ME
> Windows 2000, Win XP.
> Windows Vista, Windows 7
>
> Which makes us on version 6 (a recurring theme).
Which is somewhat counter-intuitive. Every windows version that has
had what looks like a version number in its name has actually had a
version number that corresponds to that number. Except for Windows
6.1 which is marketed as Windows 7.
Robin
Roland Perry
<89fae9f1-7ac1-4014...@u3g2000vbe.googlegroups.com>, at
05:14:36 on Tue, 8 Mar 2011, bob <rcp...@gmail.com> remarked:
>> >>>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
>> >>>2 Win 95
>> >>>3 Win 98 & ME
>> >>>4 Win2K
>> >>>5 XP
>> >>>6 Vista
>> >>>7 Win7
>>
>> >> I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
>>
>> >Although this isn't a MS page, I think it is correct & shows the full
>> >lineage:
>>
>> >http://www.nirmaltv.com/2009/08/17/windows-os-version-numbers/
>>
>> Thus:
>>
>> Windows 1
>> Windows 2
>> Windows 3, NT 3.1, WfWG 3.11, NT 3.5, NT 3.51
>> Windows 95, NT4, Win 98, Win 98SE, Win ME
>> Windows 2000, Win XP.
>> Windows Vista, Windows 7
>>
>> Which makes us on version 6 (a recurring theme).
>
>Which is somewhat counter-intuitive. Every windows version that has
>had what looks like a version number in its name has actually had a
>version number that corresponds to that number. Except for Windows
>6.1 which is marketed as Windows 7.
That's the difference between marketing and technology. Although I think
I made the error earlier of saying Win7 was a new technology step above
Vista, when 6.1 might be a better fit. (I was forgetting the 64-bit
versions of Vista).
--
Roland Perry
tony sayer
<ele...@the-blairs.co.uk> scribeth thus
>Roland Perry wrote:
>>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
>>2 Win 95
>>3 Win 98 & ME
>>4 Win2K
>>5 XP
>>6 Vista
>>7 Win7
>
>I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
>
2K was a much better product than that virus ME was;!.
XP was WIN 5.1 whereas 2K was 5.0 IIRC..
98 was OK for its time, 98 MK2 was a bit more tolerable for the year..
--
Tony Sayer
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Perry) wrote:
Windows 7is of course version 6.1.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
Mark Ayliffe
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> illuminated us with:
>>
>>Which is somewhat counter-intuitive. Every windows version that has
>>had what looks like a version number in its name has actually had a
>>version number that corresponds to that number. Except for Windows
>>6.1 which is marketed as Windows 7.
>
> That's the difference between marketing and technology. Although I think
> I made the error earlier of saying Win7 was a new technology step above
> Vista, when 6.1 might be a better fit. (I was forgetting the 64-bit
> versions of Vista).
Windows 7 is basically the working SP for Vista. IMHO. I think the
tech step happened between XP & Vista and as usual (W95/W98, NT 3.1/NT
3.51, Win 2000/Win XP) it took two goes to get it right.
--
Mark
Real email address |
is mark at | Is "tired old cliche" one?
ayliffe dot org |
Ben Hutchings
> On or about 2011-03-08,
> Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> illuminated us with:
>>>
>>>Which is somewhat counter-intuitive. Every windows version that has
>>>had what looks like a version number in its name has actually had a
>>>version number that corresponds to that number. Except for Windows
>>>6.1 which is marketed as Windows 7.
>>
>> That's the difference between marketing and technology. Although I think
>> I made the error earlier of saying Win7 was a new technology step above
>> Vista, when 6.1 might be a better fit. (I was forgetting the 64-bit
>> versions of Vista).
>
> Windows 7 is basically the working SP for Vista.
Windows 7 works better than Vista partly due to software fixes and
partly because Moore's Law has made even low-end PCs capable of
running it. Recall that Intel and some OEMs put pressure on MS to
let them label low-end PCs as suitable for Vista when they really
weren't.
Ben Hutchings
> In message <T2n*Bv...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, at 11:39:25 on Tue,
> 8 Mar 2011, Eleanor Blair <ele...@the-blairs.co.uk> remarked:
>
>>>1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3
>>>2 Win 95
>>>3 Win 98 & ME
>>>4 Win2K
>>>5 XP
>>>6 Vista
>>>7 Win7
>>
>>I always thought of 2K as being to 98/ME the same as NT was to 95.
So far as the shell (aka Windows Explorer) goes, this is correct.
> That's a legitimate point of view. It involves Win2K being in effect
> NT5. Apparently the first version of NT was v3 (go figure) so taking
> into account the convergence of the consumer and "business" versions, a
> fuller chart might be:
>
> Consumer Business Converged
>
> 1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3 ?OS/2
> 2 Win 95 NT3
> 3 Win 98 NT4
> 4 Win ME Win2K (aka NT5)
> & Server 2000
> 5 Server 2003 XP
> 6 Vista
> 7 Win7
[...]
They haven't fully converged. Although there are no longer two
separate code bases (Win9x vs NT), desktop/workstation and server
releases are not synchronised. Windows Server 2003 came out ~18
months after XP; Windows Server 2008 came out between Vista and
'7'.
Going by internal version numbers:
DOS-compatible NT desktop NT server
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.0 Windows 1.0 [none]
2.x [various names] [none]
3.x Windows 3.x Windows NT 3.x
4.0 Windows 95/98/Me Windows NT 4.0
5.0 [discontinued] Windows 2000
5.1 Windows XP (32-bit) [none]
5.2 Windows XP (64-bit) Windows Server 2003
6.0 Windows Vista Windows Server 2008
6.1 Windows 7 [TBA]
Roland Perry
19:16:28 on Tue, 8 Mar 2011, Ben Hutchings
<ben-publ...@decadent.org.uk> remarked:
>> Consumer Business Converged
>>
>> 1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3 ?OS/2
>> 2 Win 95 NT3
>> 3 Win 98 NT4
>> 4 Win ME Win2K (aka NT5)
>> & Server 2000
>> 5 Server 2003 XP
>> 6 Vista
>> 7 Win7
>[...]
>
>They haven't fully converged.
They have, in the sense I meant. In other words there aren't two
different "headline" products for consumer and business workstations.
--
Roland Perry
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Perry) wrote:
NT3 was never released commercially, surely? You must be thinking of
NT3.1. 3.51 was parallel to Windows 3.1 which you have somewhat stupidly
elided, given that it was the version that made Windows take off. Eliding
Windows for Workgroups is another matter even though 3.11 was the ultimate
networked 16-bit development, albeit with some 32-bit extensions.
Windows 98 was a bit off and on with different sites. I worked at Quillion
where we only supported NT4 and 95, avoiding 98 completely. 98 Was almost
the only non-NT derived version I found when I started my present job in
2001.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Perry) wrote:
Yours and all the others.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
Roland Perry
on Tue, 8 Mar 2011, rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk remarked:
>> Consumer Business Converged
>>
>> 1 Win2.11/386 aka Win3 ?OS/2
>> 2 Win 95 NT3
>> 3 Win 98 NT4
>> 4 Win ME Win2K (aka NT5)
>> & Server 2000
>> 5 Server 2003 XP
>> 6 Vista
>> 7 Win7
>>
>> For some reason, the one I still have most copies of is Win98, although
>> I've only got one PC that still boots into it (on account of it also
>> having a very old peripheral whose drivers were never compatible with
>> later versions). I have zero copies of Vista running (but one set of OEM
>> CDs), and only one Win7. XP is by far the most popular in the household
>> (mixture of bundled and retail/upgrade copies).
>
>NT3 was never released commercially, surely? You must be thinking of
>NT3.1.
I've left off almost all the .xx's, apart from Win2.11/386 which was a
significant advance on earlier versions.
>3.51 was parallel to Windows 3.1 which you have somewhat stupidly
>elided, given that it was the version that made Windows take off.
3.1 may have been the first version to do well commercially in the UK,
but 3.0 was a success too. At the time, people said that was because it
had finally settled down (as a v3). Which is curiously similar to the
premise in this thread about v6's. I'd don't remember what was
particularly better about 3.1 compared to 3.0, but the 3.x version was
the first (albeit a repackaged v2.11/386) to use the 386 chip properly.
>Eliding Windows for Workgroups is another matter even though 3.11 was
>the ultimate networked 16-bit development, albeit with some 32-bit
>extensions.
I don't know what that means. WfWG added a useful layer of bundled
networking, but the underlying Windows was the same.
--
Roland Perry
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
ben-publ...@decadent.org.uk (Ben Hutchings) wrote:
> 6.1 Windows 7 [TBA]
The server version of Windows 7 is Windows Server 2008 Release 2 with the
same code base.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
Tim Ward
news:m5Dg8ZqV...@perry.co.uk...
>
> I'd don't remember what was particularly better about 3.1 compared to 3.0
Typesetting. Finally a piece of software outside the professional
typesetting world that understood that "point size" and "number of pixels of
character height" were not the same thing.
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Perry) wrote:
> 3.1 may have been the first version to do well commercially in the
> UK, but 3.0 was a success too. At the time, people said that was
> because it had finally settled down (as a v3). Which is curiously
> similar to the premise in this thread about v6's. I'd don't
> remember what was particularly better about 3.1 compared to 3.0,
> but the 3.x version was the first (albeit a repackaged v2.11/386)
> to use the 386 chip properly.
3.1 was the first version to do networking usably. 3.0 was an utter kludge
there unless you limited yourself to Microsoft's NetBEUI maybe.
> >Eliding Windows for Workgroups is another matter even though 3.11 was
> >the ultimate networked 16-bit development, albeit with some 32-bit
> >extensions.
>
> I don't know what that means. WfWG added a useful layer of bundled
> networking, but the underlying Windows was the same.
WfWG was the first to catch up properly with TCP/IP networking. There was
something else 32-bit it also had but I forget.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Ward) wrote:
> "Roland Perry" <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:m5Dg8ZqV...@perry.co.uk...
> >
> > I'd don't remember what was particularly better about 3.1
> > compared to 3.0
>
> Typesetting. Finally a piece of software outside the professional
> typesetting world that understood that "point size" and "number of
> pixels of character height" were not the same thing.
To be precise, True Type and its fonts were bundled. You could get similar
functionality with Windows 3.0 using Adobe Type Manager. My first 3.1
machine came with ATM so I still have the Type 1 fonts as well as the True
Type ones.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
Roland Perry
2011, Tim Ward <t...@brettward.co.uk> remarked:
>> I'd don't remember what was particularly better about 3.1 compared to 3.0
>
>Typesetting. Finally a piece of software outside the professional
>typesetting world that understood that "point size" and "number of pixels of
>character height" were not the same thing.
I remember Microsoft being "bad at fonts", but Digital Research had
cracked that one earlier. Unfortunately their memory management wasn't
too hot and the font packages took too much RAM from applications.
--
Roland Perry
Espen Koht
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
Adobe and Apple had that cracked well before any of this.
The Natural Philosopher
Er..they sill haven't cracked it actually.
If you look at any support site for Macs, you will find that font issues
are one of the top support problems.
Roland Perry
09:39:47 on Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Espen Koht <eh...@cam.ac.uk> remarked:
>> >> I'd don't remember what was particularly better about 3.1 compared to 3.0
>> >
>> >Typesetting. Finally a piece of software outside the professional
>> >typesetting world that understood that "point size" and "number of pixels of
>> >character height" were not the same thing.
>>
>> I remember Microsoft being "bad at fonts", but Digital Research had
>> cracked that one earlier. Unfortunately their memory management wasn't
>> too hot and the font packages took too much RAM from applications.
>
>Adobe and Apple had that cracked well before any of this.
The classic Mac and GEM were fairly contemporaneous, and the Mac could
be *slow*. I remember it taking an hour to render and print each page of
a fairly straightforward manual some colleagues were working on.
And who remembers Microsoft's Truetype laser printers. They expected to
grab the market occupied by Postscript printers. How we laughed!
--
Roland Perry
Fevric J. Glandules
> If you look at any support site for Macs, you will find that font issues
> are one of the top support problems.
This *could* reflect a whole bunch of things:
a - the Mac userbase has people who actually care about fonts.
Not much talk about font issues on Linux sites.
b - fonts being inherently difficult. At least, that is the
impression I get.
c - everything else Just Works.
Espen Koht
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <ehk20-D3A95A....@nnrp.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, at
> 09:39:47 on Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Espen Koht <eh...@cam.ac.uk> remarked:
> >> >> I'd don't remember what was particularly better about 3.1 compared to
> >> >> 3.0
> >> >
> >> >Typesetting. Finally a piece of software outside the professional
> >> >typesetting world that understood that "point size" and "number of pixels
> >> >of
> >> >character height" were not the same thing.
> >>
> >> I remember Microsoft being "bad at fonts", but Digital Research had
> >> cracked that one earlier. Unfortunately their memory management wasn't
> >> too hot and the font packages took too much RAM from applications.
> >
> >Adobe and Apple had that cracked well before any of this.
>
> The classic Mac and GEM were fairly contemporaneous, and the Mac could
> be *slow*. I remember it taking an hour to render and print each page of
> a fairly straightforward manual some colleagues were working on.
You must have had an unusual setup; the whole point of the LaserWriter
was that *it* would do the rendering and printing, not the Mac.
Rupert Moss-Eccardt
But the Laserwriter driver was awful. One of the TNs talked about the
preamble sent that was thousands of bytes long, including a huge wodge
of 68K machine code. By the time the TN was written it had to admit
no-one understood it anymore but they had to send it to keep things
working. Allowing also for Localtalk (or a direct serial connection)
and the possibility of large font downloads, it could take some time.
Roland Perry
12:09:02 on Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Espen Koht <eh...@cam.ac.uk> remarked:
>> The classic Mac and GEM were fairly contemporaneous, and the Mac could
>> be *slow*. I remember it taking an hour to render and print each page of
>> a fairly straightforward manual some colleagues were working on.
>
>You must have had an unusual setup; the whole point of the LaserWriter
>was that *it* would do the rendering and printing, not the Mac.
I don't know what printer they were using, but I vividly recall the
"page down", "view", "print" cycle taking an hour!
--
Roland Perry
The Natural Philosopher
> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> If you look at any support site for Macs, you will find that font issues
>> are one of the top support problems.
>
> This *could* reflect a whole bunch of things:
> a - the Mac userbase has people who actually care about fonts.
> Not much talk about font issues on Linux sites.
That's cos they Just Work.
> b - fonts being inherently difficult. At least, that is the
> impression I get.
Memory/processor intensive, yes, difficult? No.
> c - everything else Just Works.
On MAC? Don't make me larf. three times a week I have to go over to the
wife's mac to try and figure out why it isn't doing what it did 5
minutes before.
The Natural Philosopher
Yebbut before it could do THAT you had to turn everything into
Postscript, and probably send it down a serial link.
The first question I asked when we got our first Postscript printer was
'how can 2K of ASCII text suddenly become 20MB of Postcsript? And lock
up the network for minutes at a time?'
The answer of course, is that postcript is a language: Text is its
output. You have to essentially disassemble the text you want into an
'assembler' program and then recompile it down to pixels, at the other end.
A worse way of doing things probably never was invented..
Ben Hutchings
3.11 had a native (32-bit) implementation of FAT (replacing part of DOS)
and some disk controller drivers (replacing BIOS calls). One of those
was already implemented in 3.1; I forget which.
3.11 was not the same thing as WfWg, though few OEMs distributed plain
Windows 3.11.
The Windows 95 kernel is not so different from that in 3.11, in fact.
rosen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Perry) wrote:
An hour? Luxury! Doing crude DTP on my Amstrad PCW I had to leave it going
overnight to produce no more than two sides of A4.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
Rupert Moss-Eccardt
Wrong!
Postscript is a proper language. You didn't have to do any pixel-based
stuff unless you were doing graphics and even then there were some
graphics primitives to call on.
I knew someone who wrote 'Colossal Cave' in Postscript.
The Natural Philosopher
If by that you mean enormously verbose and so full featured it needs
15MB of headers to tell the printer what particular feature sets its
using, then yes. A right proper language..
> You didn't have to do any pixel-based
> stuff unless you were doing graphics and even then there were some
> graphics primitives to call on.
ER...somewhere some pixel based stiff has to be done.
The fact being that by and larger, the language was more verbose than
simply sending the data one pixel at a time.
If you want a really GOOD printer language, look at HP PCL.
For 99% of most normal office work, its ten to a hundred times faster
and des the job.
Postscript is only really needed for sub pixel accuracy and infinitely
downloadable fonts.
>
> I knew someone who wrote 'Colossal Cave' in Postscript.
>
I sacked someone who failed to write a simple PERL script. In fact he
might well have been writing 'colossal cave' in Postscript.
It would fit the general profile.
>
>
Rupert Moss-Eccardt
The 15MB of headers is not a Postscript thing it was an Apple thing and,
these days, isn't even that. It doesn't happen any more.
>> You didn't have to do any pixel-based stuff unless you were doing
>> graphics and even then there were some graphics primitives to call on.
>
> ER...somewhere some pixel based stiff has to be done.
>
> The fact being that by and larger, the language was more verbose than
> simply sending the data one pixel at a time.
>
> If you want a really GOOD printer language, look at HP PCL.
Bollocks. HP PCL is all very well but its taken a long time to get that
way. At the time we are talking about PCL was in its infancy. It is
now pretty good and I would say that PCL6+ and Postscript are pretty
equal these days. Of course PS has the advantage of being a PDL rather
than a PCL so works on devices other than printers.
> For 99% of most normal office work, its ten to a hundred times faster
> and des the job.
>
> Postscript is only really needed for sub pixel accuracy and infinitely
> downloadable fonts.
I don't see much difference in rendering speeds in the applications I'm
familiar with.
Espen Koht
I just converted this 1.7kB message (plain headers) to a 20kB PostScript
file using an ascii to PostScript tool, and to a 160kB file using a
modern PostScript driver (most of that is wrapping around the original
ASCII), so the real question should probably have been 'what am I doing
wrong?'. Real world transfer speeds (minus the overheads) over the 'not
your grandma's serial port' in the LaserWriter was around 8.5kB/s, so a
time to print in any sensible scenario should have been somewhere
between 2.5 and 20s. Not that this has much to do with type setting mind
you.
Espen Koht
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
I don't even know what a 'page down', 'view', 'print' cycle would be.
Sounds like they may have been rasterising on the mac rather than the
output device, which wouldn't be the normal way to do things.
Fevric J. Glandules
> Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> If you look at any support site for Macs, you will find that font issues
>>> are one of the top support problems.
>>
>> This *could* reflect a whole bunch of things:
>> a - the Mac userbase has people who actually care about fonts.
>> Not much talk about font issues on Linux sites.
>
> That's cos they Just Work.
As a Linux user, it Just Works if I can read it. Designery-types
are far more picky. Consult an expert.
>> b - fonts being inherently difficult. At least, that is the
>> impression I get.
>
> Memory/processor intensive, yes, difficult? No.
Yes, I think so. AIUI, they do not scale linearly, for one thing.
>> c - everything else Just Works.
>
> On MAC? Don't make me larf. three times a week I have to go over to the
> wife's mac to try and figure out why it isn't doing what it did 5
> minutes before.
Speculative innit. Anyway - if she was on Windows you might be
over there every 5 minutes.
Roland Perry
18:47:55 on Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Espen Koht <eh...@cam.ac.uk> remarked:
>I don't even know what a 'page down', 'view', 'print' cycle would be.
You've just printed a page, you want to print the next one.
You press 'page down' to get it on the screen.
You 'view' it to see if it's got all the corrections you expected.
You 'print' it.
--
Roland Perry
The Natural Philosopher
Apart from my virtual machine, this is a Microsoft Free Zone...
Espen H. Koht
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
That doesn't sound like any Mac typesetting software I've ever come
across. You view each page (possibly using 'page down') and then you
print them all in one go.
Roland Perry
14:58:58 on Thu, 10 Mar 2011, Espen H. Koht <eh...@cam.ac.uk> remarked:
>> >I don't even know what a 'page down', 'view', 'print' cycle would be.
>>
>> You've just printed a page, you want to print the next one.
>>
>> You press 'page down' to get it on the screen.
>> You 'view' it to see if it's got all the corrections you expected.
>> You 'print' it.
>
>That doesn't sound like any Mac typesetting software I've ever come
>across. You view each page (possibly using 'page down') and then you
>print them all in one go.
When it's taking as long as I describe, you only want to print it a page
at a time.
--
Roland Perry
Espen Koht
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
I still have no idea what you are describing though. It doesn't sound
like any Mac typesetting software I've come across apart from perhaps
some kind of ill-advised non-PostScript work flow.
Roland Perry
12:23:30 on Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Espen Koht <eh...@cam.ac.uk> remarked:
>I still have no idea what you are describing though. It doesn't sound
>like any Mac typesetting software I've come across apart from perhaps
>some kind of ill-advised non-PostScript work flow.
I don't know what Mac software you've seen, but pretty much every
package I've seen (few of them on Macs because I try to avoid them)
allows you to page through the document to edit and proof-read, and to
print individual pages.
--
Roland Perry
Espen Koht
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
Sure they would allow you to do that if you wanted[1], but you wouldn't
do it that way, because individual pages wouldn't take an hour to render
and print.
[1] But not very efficiently; for example, the printing dialogue box
would not normally have had a 'print current page' option, so you would
have had to keep specifying the page range. ie. 1 to 1 for the first
page and n to n for page n. All very tedious and unlikely to be in
common use.
Roland Perry
12:43:22 on Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Espen Koht <eh...@cam.ac.uk> remarked:
>> I don't know what Mac software you've seen, but pretty much every
>> package I've seen (few of them on Macs because I try to avoid them)
>> allows you to page through the document to edit and proof-read, and to
>> print individual pages.
>
>Sure they would allow you to do that if you wanted[1], but you wouldn't
>do it that way, because individual pages wouldn't take an hour to render
>and print.
We did have to do it that way because printing the whole document would
take vastly longer, as well as wasting ink and paper when we were only
trying to correct a couple of pages.
You seem to be wilfully ignoring the possibility that the system was
*hugely* slower than what we see today.
--
Roland Perry
Espen H. Koht
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
I'm basing my answers on detailed experiences with the
Macintosh/LaserWriter combo from 1989 onwards (before that my Mac
experience was more limited).