[rollei_list] Oddball Musings from This Mutabile Soul
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:40:07 -0400
At 11:03 AM 3/29/2012, Eric Goldstein wrote:
Hi Marc -
Again, we don't know if XP drivers are available for the new
computer AND Microsoft has announced the end of support for XP in a
couple of years so that OS is headed for the finish line.
Windows 7 is a fine OS and his new computer will run well under
it... there is no reason to dump it. Older people, myself included,
need to stay open minded/flexible and try new technologies before
criticizing them... adopting new ideas and learning new things keeps
you nimble...
And speaking of which, exactly when was the last time you used Mac
OS for an extended period? It is an extremely well done
implementation of Unix and considered a really advanced OS by just
about any impartial judge...
Microsoft has announced the 'end' of support for Windows XP at least
five times, but has always had to pull back as there is demand for
it, while there is no demand for Vista or 7 and because so many folks
dump Vista or 7 and load XP on their computers. It is a free
enterprise market, and Microsoft will support XP so long as it
continues to sell. As XP is the perfected version of Windows, why
improve perfection?
I have never used any Mac for any length of time. Charlie Barringer,
the great Zeiss lens guru, always swore by Mac, but he was a mindless
idiot when it came to computers, and liked Mac as, in his terms, 'I
don't have to think when I use it'. I go back to the key-punch days
of the late 1960's and the first computer I personally used was an
IBM 360, so I understand the early machine-code systems. Heck, I was
happy with CPM and DOS 3.1 was very heaven to me. I was most
suspicious when my wife suggested that I upgrade from Windows 97 to
XP but, having made the change a decade back, I am content.
Windows 7 may be a fine operating system but I have been told that it
will not easily run DOS programs. This may or may not be true but it
does matter: I have XP and I see no reason to pay a gazillion
dollars to upgrade to Windows 7. WOLFENSTEIN 3D runs well under XP
as do my other DOS programs. Riddle me this, Batman: why mess about
with a good thing? This is along the same lines as the dispute we
all had over T-Grain films when they came out in the 1980's. What
was wrong with Panatomic-X? Shucks, I go back to the days of Royal
Pan and Ilford HP-3. I was really happy with the films of, say,
1985, and then Kodak messed things up with TMX and TMY and then I
learned how to develop TMX in Rodinal and Bob's Your Uncle.
Carlos still fights the Good Fight with film. I shoot about three
shots a year now, and all are digital and generally get deleted. The
joy is gone from photography. But, then, I'm an Old Guy and my joys
are in listening to Big Band and Swing music and in rereading books I
first read forty years back. I often sit on the back deck and smoke
a cigar and recall the Glory Days of the past. Mind you, I did not
FEEL old until last autumn, when I suddenly realized that I was 61
and that the Nixon campaign of '68 was more real to me than the
effort to unseat Obama was.
Eric, you are a mainstay of this List and I admire your willingness
to see progress as improvement. I have become a documenter of the
past much more than part of the evolving future. It is a bit scary
to realize that my son, aetate XXX, feels much as I do ...
Marc
It is a good world for doing good deeds.
-- Nathaniel the Faun
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