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What's wrong with Old?

(12 posts) (6 voices)

Started 7 years ago by Dragonlair
Latest reply from mikiem2

Dragonlair
Member

After seeing Mikiem2's discussion yesterday about the older audio software, I was reminded of some thoughts I've had recently concerning older software.

What's wrong with old? It usually still works fine!

Recently, I got into the mood to play the ORIGINAL Treasures of Montezuma. It was given away years ago here and has been in the freebie circuit for years. However, many sites, including the original developer, Alawar, have "retired" it. The copy I currently play came on an old CD of various old games. Regardless, it works absolutely fine on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 so I see no reason it would not run under 10 as well. The only problem -- it's OLD!

Last year, I got a laptop and transitioned my games onto that machine as well as all subsequent games I've gotten. I currently have 1457 games total across the two machines. 99.2% of the games have transitioned to the new machine with only 11 failures (one recent one) and 15 that I skipped (decided not to even try -- mostly old DOS games - because I didn't feel like fussing with DOSBOX). Most of the failures are not the OS but the graphics card on the laptop. Even some of the "successes" have a few hiccups due to graphics issues.

Last year (and again this year), I replaced my printer. The latest replacement was with the exact same model hoping to keep the weird print driver (didn't work). The printer and driver are "new". The driver is supposed to work with all versions of Windows from XP through 10 (according to the combined info from the 2 CDs with the same driver version number). However, the only software I have been able to get the driver to work with is Internet Explorer and Foxit Reader. Everything else is too "old". Even software that was just released a week before I got the latest printer ("old"?) fails.

The prime failure is Microsoft Office 2007. Yes, Office has upgraded several times since 2007. Yes, Excel has a weird problem with sorting that is supposed to be fixed in the 2010 version. However, it works fine - does what I want - and I don't want to pay again for features I don't know about and may not need!

Again -- what is wrong with old? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with new but if what you have works and you would have to pay for an upgrade to what you already have, why bother?

I guess the only answer to the question is the developers can't get MORE money from you if you don't upgrade. But if the software is so poor that you HAVE to upgrade to get it to work, then I suspect other ways would be found -- like competitors!

Posted 7 years ago #
ChrisS
Administrator

re the Treasures of Montezuma - you might just need to install the 32-bit C++ runtime redistributables (assuming you haven't already). Depending on how old the game you could need the 2005, 2008, or 2010 versions.

I guess the only answer to the question is the developers can't get MORE money from you if you don't upgrade.

I think most of the problem is that there really are no more needed upgrades so they have to break the installation and force you to buy a new copy. From my experience, nothing much has improved since mid-XP days. I don't need more fonts or formatting choices, Excel can now handle more data that I want in a spreadsheet and the rest, like the audio software you mention, just has updates to deal with the modern tech. Any new features are largely useless so there's no reason to upgrade except to get the s/w to work again.

But, I've always been rather puzzled by the printer drivers. The hardware, the printer itself, is a loss-leader for the manufacturer; it's sold as a platform to get you to buy over-priced toner or ink. The manufacturer should work overtime to ensure that you keep using your old device so they won't lose money by selling you a new one. But no, you have to buy new (or use a VM).

Posted 7 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

Chris,

The reason I replaced the printer the last time was problems with the print heads with a brother printer. Brother ink is cheaper than many companies (even the REAL stuff) but the printers are designed to be used almost constantly. We use the printer maybe once every month or two (except near tax time) so it was eventually made clear to us that brother was not the brand for us.

We have a very old HP F380 printer from 2007 that is working fine for us (bought when we got a new computer and switched from Windows ME to Windows Vista). We never even tried the driver CD that came with the printer when we got our Windows 7 machine. We figured, HP is HP and it would find the driver needed -- it did! It's ONLY problem is because of it's age, the resolution of the printing is a little less than the newer printers, resulting in slightly blurred text. One of these days, HP is going to stop making 21 and 22 cartridges and then we'll have to give it up.

Last year we bought an HP 2132 for about $40 from Walmart to replace the brother. I spent 4 hours on the phone with HP trying to get a driver that worked for the older software of Office as well as things like PCStitch 10. It lasted about 14 months (about 2 months out of warranty) and it developed some sort of glitch and refused to use the black ink even with a new cartridge. It would recognize the level in the cartridge but wouldn't use it.

We got the same model last week hoping we would not have to to through the trouble with the dual printer drivers since we had them. Also, we still had some ink and it used the same cartridge, obviously. It did prove the problem WAS the old printer, the cartridge the one printer refused works fine in the newer printer.

The new printer didn't require me to use the disk because it found the software available. I still had to call because it would not use the 2nd driver created. On the first call, the gentleman did get an older "universal driver" (HP 9800) to work but he lost the newer driver that we sometimes used for taxes in Foxit. I called again and that "lady" (I'm trying to be polite) destroyed ALL the work he did, argued with me that I could not do what I had been doing for over a year (2 drivers for the same printer) and had the print drivers so messed up that you could not even see the properties. She required a reboot to get things fixed. It ONLY took a 45 minute phone call to get what I wanted.

I don't think she's happy now -- I did their survey a few days later. Other than the final result, nothing got higher than a 4 out of 10. She got a 1!

I agree with the confusion over print drives being so picky. Why would they say it works with XP, ME, and Vista when nothing of that era, other than possibly Foxit, would be supported by the driver? Even the brand new PCStitch 11 that I'm testing for M&R Tech failed. I have notified them of the potential problem.

PCStitch is one of those things that just offers some somewhat minor updates -- in this case, they asked on their forums what people wanted and used that to add to the program. Most of the stuff seems to be working fine. For those interested -- It's cross-stitch pattern design software. No, I don't need the update. However, I've worked with the developers and have tested every version of the software since 7 which was common back in 2004.

Posted 7 years ago #
mikiem2
Moderator

What's wrong with old? It usually still works fine!

I agree most whole heartedly... I've got software, some of it quite expensive at the time, that was distributed on floppies. Besides not spending money needlessly, sometimes newer software never does catch up, or it may just take quite a while -- I just recently stopped using a win95 era photo editing app from Micrographix, since the parts I used were finally available in a new version of another app I use.

... the printers are designed to be used almost constantly. We use the printer maybe once every month or two (except near tax time) so it was eventually made clear to us that brother was not the brand for us.

I've actually had better luck in that respect with my Brother MFC-J4310DW than Epson or Canon printers. I make it part of my routine to print coupons once a week, which seems enough -- it wasn't with the Canon & Epson printers -- & I always turn it off as soon as I'm done, having read that Brother printers do self cleaning, & with no printing afterwards, that causes clogs. How true that is I have no idea.

The best, at least partial answer I've found [other than printing all the time] is to use some of the cheaper Canon models. Many of the cheaper models use a cartridge that includes the print head, so worst case you replace that instead of the printer, or rather than running 2 or 3 cleaning cycles every day for a few days. Fry's has had one on sale for $30 I think the last couple of days in their emails.

The downside is that the cartridges are more expensive since they do include the heads -- when you can buy the all-in-one for $30, it can be cheaper to buy the printer than replace the ink. And that's just what I did for several years -- I had 3-6 new & reman printers on the shelf, the boxes only opened to remove the new ink cartridges. I also refilled those cartridges, but that's not for everybody -- I removed the glued-on top, soaked the parts to clean the heads, re-glued the tops on & refilled them. You can generally get 2 or 3 refills out of one of those cartridges.

Posted 7 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

I've found that HP printers seem to work best for us. They, like the Canon you mention, have the heads in the cartridge and I've had them set for months with both the older F380 and the newer 2132 model with no problems. The cartridges aren't cheap but the way we use them, they last a long time. The Deskjet 2132 is $39 from Walmart.com ($39.98 in my local store). My adding a cartridge with it (beyond the starter cartridges), I didn't have to go pick it up -- it was delivered. Then, because of bad packaging, the cartridge box was so squashed and damaged, I returned it to the store for a refund and still got free shipping for the printer! Add a little more padding, Walmart!

For old software, my best "buy" for software was an old old old spreadsheet package called FlashCalc. It was a predecessor of VisiCalc (both by VisiCorp). I bought it off the clearance table at ComputerLand when I bought my first computer (IBM Model 60) back in 1987. I paid $5 for it when it originally cost $100. It has a coupon in the manual to order a backup floppy (5.25", of course) for $10. I laughed. It had no color, did not use the mouse, barely recognized directories (back in the days of DOS) and did not use any sub-directories. It was tiny and worked well for it's time. However, it was written in basic and was geared to the clock of the computer. For a 10 Mhz machine it was OK. When I went to 50 Mhz, I had to play games by putting it in a loop to get it to load without a divide check. Once I went over 50 Mhz, I never got it to load again! My husband loved that little spreadsheet. He even liked it better than Excel because it didn't depend on the mouse. I still have the original floppy for it and even a backup somewhere.

Note -- I've seen that divide check several times. It's always old software and I do mean old. The machine is too fast for the software to load properly and it gives a divide check. Sometimes you can just keep repeating the load with slight pauses in between and it will eventually load. I used a product called PowerBatch that allowed you to create stronger, compiled batch programs to get it to loop. I haven't even installed PowerBatch for the last 3 computers!

Posted 7 years ago #
Alianthia
Member

Hi Dragonlair!!!
I have the original Treasures of Montezuma...and it's odd that other sites are retiring it because it is still available on Bigfish.
It works great, as you say on windows 7 (and did on 8 but I haven't tried it on 10 yet) Hmm sounds like the other sites are maybe making excuses... :(
I totally agree, just because something is a few years old doesn't automatically mean it should be deleted!
"I guess the only answer to the question is the developers can't get MORE money from you if you don't upgrade. " exactly...
(Funny though, as many have said and I totally agree, that the original version was the best. They kept churning out newer, "better" versions but none add up , in my opinion! :)

Posted 7 years ago #
Alianthia
Member

Hi Dragonlair!!!
I have the original Treasures of Montezuma...and it's odd that other sites are retiring it because it is still available on Bigfish.
It works great, as you say on windows 7 (and did on 8 but I haven't tried it on 10 yet) Hmm sounds like the other sites are maybe making excuses... :(
I totally agree, just because something is a few years old doesn't automatically mean it should be deleted!
"I guess the only answer to the question is the developers can't get MORE money from you if you don't upgrade. " exactly...
(Funny though, as many have said and I totally agree, that the original version was the best. They kept churning out newer, "better" versions but none add up , in my opinion! :)

Posted 7 years ago #
mikiem2
Moderator

Funny though, as many have said and I totally agree, that the original version was the best. They kept churning out newer, "better" versions but none add up , in my opinion!

COMPLETELY FWIW...
Anything related to computers has changed immensely. Programming used to be a trade you went to college for, requiring certain talents & capabilities. People coding games were often at the very leading edge, same as with some of today's triple A titles, but years ago that held true for most any game, and quite a lot of software too. You don't see that anymore.

Today tools like those available from Microsoft make programming easier than ever, but the price is much less optimized code, & limits on originality. Programming jobs have been off-shored to a large extent, with the focus on paying the lowest wages for the maximum productivity. You tend not to see much improvement or innovation with established programs because the people who developed the large banks of code they rely on aren't employed there any longer. Programming to a large extent has moved from being a trade to a required course if you're in college studying Computer Science, or something folks do for a hobby. That's not to say there aren't excellent programmers today -- just that there are much fewer opportunities for them, & fewer yet that pay close to their worth.

I do apologize if that sounds like an old man rant -- it wasn't intended that way -- but it's harder for someone to make a living programming, & it's harder for smaller developers to turn a profit given the average price of apps &/or games & the huge amount of competition, & it's really, really hard to spend the extra time & effort without going broke.

Posted 7 years ago #
Philipgreenwood
Member

....I agree. I know a programmer who specializes in the C+,C++. whatever that means. He still needs another job as well, to live. I enjoy loads of the old games as well, but I also say new ones are good too.

Posted 7 years ago #
Dragonlair
Member

I'm another who was a "programmer" but we called ourselves software engineers (me with a master's degree which was somewhat uncommon way back in the '80s). I quit my professional job years ago for political reasons. I got sick and tired of my having to bring projects in on time when others abandoned them and left them to me (2 months behind schedule) or even worse - one person letting me do the work and her get the credit and the project manager admitting the issue but justifying himself by saying at least this way he knows the job will get done! I turned in my 2 weeks notice after that statement!

My husband was a systems engineer in main control over MVS in a large IBM environment. He also quit for political reasons -- after they moved his computer 1500 miles away and left him to support it long distance!

We both sound like sour grapes but with all the offshoring of jobs, we long since game up trying to find anything. We just keep our PC up to our standards as much as we can - software-wise -- neither of us is strong on hardware!

Posted 7 years ago #
Terri218
Member

Oh boy have you hit one of my pet peeves especially this week. Why the heck did we need Windows 10 which keeps highjacking my computer to install updates I didn't ask for. The other day it kept me from using my computer for AN HOUR. The next day it took over my computer for a shorter period of time but still very inconvenient and annoying. And it's totally messed up my desktop icon placement. I was very happy with the older versions.

Posted 7 years ago #
mikiem2
Moderator

Why the heck did we need Windows 10 which keeps highjacking my computer to install updates I didn't ask for.

Because the old CEO at Microsoft wanted, as he very publicly announced, to be Apple. That's the quick version anyway of why 8 & now 10. I'm thankful that MS came out with their Surface tablet & notebook, because as my son pointed out, without pressure from the parts of MS engineering & making those devices, whom most importantly had to make sure that they worked, 10 might be worse than it is.

Now why 10 has to do updating the ways that it does, is to me anyway a total unknown. For every argument for it I can come up with 1 or more against, e.g. forcing what might be a bad update only encourages turning off updates entirely to avoid the risk.

Myself, I don't ever plan on using 10 immediately when I start it, but figure on it taking time to check for & install any updates right off the bat, so there's less chance of getting interrupted. I try to plan accordingly, e.g. I'll go & make that fresh cup of coffee while it's checking/doing updates rather than before I fire 10 up. It doesn't make me any happier, but it does help me to not become quite as upset with the rigamarole. ;)

Posted 7 years ago #

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