Are all service centers worth :shit: if I use Win98?
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Could it be that I'm in Hungary?
Sure? I have never owned a home in Hungary. ;)
Here in the USA, independent handypeople (Is that better @abarker?) don't like paying taxes either. You can usually get a cheaper price by asking for the "cash price".
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Here the situation seems to be that all masons, painters, pipe mechanics, electricians etc. etc. are all crappy at their jobs
Maybe the good ones all moved to Western Europe.
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@marczellm said:
Here the situation seems to be that all masons, painters, pipe mechanics, electricians etc. etc. are all crappy at their jobs
Maybe the good ones all moved to Western Europe.
Then why are they doing it in a crappy way around here?
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@loopback0 said:
@marczellm said:
Here the situation seems to be that all masons, painters, pipe mechanics, electricians etc. etc. are all crappy at their jobs
Maybe the good ones all moved to Western Europe.
Then why are they doing it in a crappy way around here?
Maybe those ones are Belgian?
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nt handypeople (Is that better @abarker?)
I give that two gender studies majors out of four on the problematic scale. You're being discriminatory to non-people.
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"handy" sounds pretty ableist to me too
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I'm hungry too
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In your experience, are all service centers and repairmen mostly always doing a shitty job?
Sometimes you've just got bad luck. I once sent in a laptop for repairs and it was gone for three months. It took countless e-mails and calls to the manufacturer (where it was for repairs) but finally they got 'round to fixing it. Apart from that, my experience has been pretty good.
The real problem is your dad's fear for service centers, handypeople, and sometimes replacing stuff when it breaks. That laptop was replaced more than 8 years ago... surely it must have paid off by now and it's time for something new?
Also, XP? Seriously?
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"handy" sounds pretty ableist to me too
I kick people who use words like "ableist" in the shin.
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XP? Seriously?
On the one hand, the picture is not mine, but from the internetzzz.
On the other hand, and fitting in with the theme of this site, the laptop in question is running Vista, but my father is regularly using 4 other computers:- an older Compaq laptop running XP (pre-SP), that has no Ethernet port and no way to access the Internet and doesn't even accept all USB drives,
- a netbook running XP, for travels,
- a desktop PC running Windows 98 for regular Web browsing, reading and writing emails, and searching for technical documentation (service manuals for the amplifiers and cinema processors he repairs) - though the version of Adobe Reader on that computer cannot open all PDFs, he calls on me when that happens, and also when he wants to use the website of the electricity or gas company to report back the meter values.
- a desktop PC from 1993 running Windows 3.1, on which he creates Excel spreadsheets about company finances to send to the accountants, and creates technical plan drawings with CorelDraw 4 or 5 when he is hired to design a concert stage lighting rig or a conference hall sound system.
His reasoning for keeping the Compaq laptop and the 98 machine around is the following. The equipment that he works with, specifically stage lighting mixers that are in use in theatres and by stage lighting companies, as well as the cinema processors that are installed in cinemas, often come with accompanying software that was written for older versions of Windows, and exclusively supports communication on RS-232 serial port. Newer computers do not have RS-232 ports, and cannot run these pieces of software, therefore the museum.
(For the possible reason these programs do not run on newer versions of Windows, please refer to the articles by Raymond Chen that explain the myriad of ways to write shitty incompatible software for Windows.)
Maybe a bonus , or not: I insisted on wiping Windows 2000 and reinstalling Windows 98 on that machine when I was a kid, because 2000 didn't run some crappy Garfield comic creator game I had.
See also
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accompanying software that was written for older versions of Windows, and exclusively supports communication on RS-232 serial port. Newer computers do not have RS-232 ports, and cannot run these pieces of software, therefore the museum.
Introducing.... VMs! + USB Serial adapter!
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His reasoning for keeping the Compaq laptop and the 98 machine around is
the followingbad.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1JM1V53535&cm_re=rs-232_port--9SIA1JM1V53535--Product
USB-to-RS-232 has been around forever.
Oddly enough, that's literally true. You can find cave paintings of USB-to-RS-232 PCIe cards. Nobody really understands it.
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I see a lot of bad arguments for keeping life-expired hardware and operating systems alive. Your post makes it sound like your dad runs an IT museum on a daily basis.
Those three laptops can be replaced with one sleek Ultrabook, maybe even a Surface Pro. They're fast, easy to carry around, and most of all: the operating system is still supported by the vendor. Still running XP or Vista in 2015 (almost 2016) and connecting to the internet is like walking through ISIS controlled territory while wearing a rainbow coloured shirt and chanting the theme song of The Sound of Music - the only thing it will get you is a lot of pain.
And about those two desktops? Plop down a nice 24" monitor and a suitable docking station and he can quickly continue working on whatever it is that he is doing.
If you ever need to talk to some equipment over RS-232 which was invented when Windows NT 3.51 was still a novelty, there are virtual machines and USB to RS232 converters. Run XP in a virtual machine, run the programs, and when he's done he can happily go back to 2015 as opposed to 1985.
Oh, and make sure that everything is backed up regularely, because someday he'll need it. Hard drives will die, motherboards or power supply units can get fried after a lightning strike or just because they die of old age, and all sorts of components will eventually fail. And then there's the chance of user abuse ("Awwh crap, I knocked over my coffee and it went into the laptop") or malicious 3rd parties (infected advertisement networks are well-known sources of pain).
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FWIW, I've had trouble using those in the past (My radio programming software doesn't talk to the radios over anything other than a physical RS-232 port)
Even with that restriction though - you can still get computers with serial ports and Windows... 7, at least. They'll be a little old and crappy, but they work.
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14 seconds of searching finds this, which claims to support Windows 10. Yes, it's another usb-to-serial adapter, but at least you're not stuck with Windows 7. Here is a PCIe card with 2 actual serial ports, just like in the old days, that claims to support "XP or later".
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usb-to-serial adapter
Yeah, see, that's the problem. Hardware doesn't play with those.
I could upgrade to Win 10 on the device in question if I really wanted to, but lazy upgrades
Also, I need it to be a laptop for other raisins. Programming radios installed in vehicles is somewhat difficult with a desktop
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Programming radios installed in vehicles is somewhat difficult with a desktop
Bah. You just need a long enough cable.
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Long enough to run from the building I'm in out to the vehicle? I'd be impressed :P
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I know all this. He cannot be told.
the only thing it will get you is a lot of pain.
Care to explain? He sees these machines as "works, ain't broke, don't fix". Refer to the SuperUser question I posted - why is it bad for me to have an infected computer if I don't notice anything?
Run XP in a virtual machine
I can do that, but him? Also, I have serious doubts about the reliability of the "shitty old software to XP to VM to host operating system to USB to RS-232 to old equipment" path. I've heard that for example you cannot make VM-s work with all USB MIDI devices.Oh, and I forgot to note his most important argument:
Those three laptops can be replaced with one sleek Ultrabook, maybe even a Surface Pro.
a nice 24" monitor and a suitable docking station
USB to RS232 converters
"But that costs MONEY! Why should I spend anything on replacing stuff that WORKS?""And spend a lot of time learning the new UI that's even shittier?"
That last one is a good one though. Learning new UI-s at 56.
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Well, like people have written on SuperUser: to protect your reputation. You don't want to get linked to stuff like credit card fraud, DoS attacks or child pornography because you willfully neglected to stay current.
Also, it's being about a good citizen. You don't leave your garage unlocked and never look in there ("my house is fine as it is, I don't need the garage") because people will eventually use it for things you did not anticipate. For example: shooting porn in there, using it for drug trafficking, or whatever. The same applies to computers.
And "learning new UIs at 56" is a problem because? If your dad buys a new car, he'll have to learn a new user interface. Surely it will look somewhat familiar (pedals, steering wheel, clutch, indicators) but some things will be different (position of the reverse, how the radio works, that nift cruise control things, etc.) and he will have to learn about those too.
My dad is 63 and he has always followed the trends. He was among the first to upgrade to Windows 10 and I haven't heard him complain once.
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replacing stuff that WORKS
Rebuttal: For how long? I'm sure I could find a '67 Chevy that "just works", but needs a lot of work to get it to work properly, spews out toxic waste, and looks terrible, but dag gummit it still works consarndit!
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Yeah, see, that's the problem. Hardware doesn't play with those.
Ok. Doctor Logic here.
If hardware doesn't "play" with USB -> serial adapters, then why do they exist? Connecting to hardware is literally the only thing they do.
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my specific hardware doesn't play.
Actually specific flavors of the specific hardware.
The EF Johnson 5100 handhelds work fine with the USB-serial converter.
However, the EF Johnson 5300 mobile radios do not and require a "real" serial port and trying to use a USB-serial converter just doesn't work (computer doesn't even see the radio).
I'd be willing to bet that for most applications the USB-serial converters work fine. But for my specific application (those things are picky as hell about hardware anyways - you can't even firmware update them with a multicore processor!), they don't work
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my specific hardware doesn't play.
Ok, do you see how that's different from what you typed the first time?
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Unless you completely ignore the context of my first post, no.
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If you're going to completely ignore logic and think I was talking about all hardware... well... go for it I suppose. But if you read it in context, FrostCat was responding to my post about a specific situation where they don't work.
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And "learning new UIs at 56" is a problem because?
Because for some people it's enormously time consuming, and tiring, and he doesn't really have much free time to do annoying and tiring stuff that seems completely unnecessary.If your dad buys a new car
Surprise surprise, he doesn't. Our car is a first generation Opel Astra Caravan, so it's at least 17 years old.
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Because for some people it's enormously time consuming, and tiring, and he doesn't really have much free time to do annoying and tiring stuff that seems completely unnecessary.
Or see it as a challenge to learn something new. Get out of the comfort zone, try something new.Surprise surprise, he doesn't. Our car is a first generation Opel Astra Caravan, so it's at least 17 years old.
Damn. Well if it works, it works, but at some point it will stop working.
At least a car is a tangible thing that basically has two modes: working or broken. Computers can fail in dozens of spectacular ways, people using them for their own benefits (CryptoWall, botnets, rogue bitcoin miners) are just one of your concerns.
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A new chapter of this adventure.
My brother comes to me and pours out his complaints. On our 10 years old desktop PC he used to edit videos during high school. Among others, he made a 45 minute "documentary" about the Italy trip of their class. He used Windows Movie Maker for this. The machine was running XP back then.
XP support ended in 2014 so I installed Windows 7 on that machine. This slowed down the machine to the point of unusability. I made it usable again by adding 2 GB RAM to its original 1 GB.
He dug up some version of Movie Maker and tried to continue where he left off, but it turns out that after the OS upgrade, during video editing playback, the sound lags behind the video severely. I have no idea why this is. He obtained some other cracked video editing software, but it cannot be installed on the remaining 700 MB of hard drive space. (Of course the software CBA to install on the D drive).
On the one hand, I'm telling him 'dude, video editing on a 10 year old PC?' On the other hand, I understand him completely. Why the Belgium should one cash out the price of a full new computer, when the one he already has is fully capable of the task and hindered unusable only by a software change?
(Note: According to
the average monthly wage here in Hungary is $888 which is less than 1/5th of the US wage. That should tell you that buying a new computer is a big decision for a family.)
Anybody happen to know
- why the sound may be lagging?
- a good, user friendly, basic open source video editor that runs on older machines?
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@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
a good, user friendly, basic open source video editor that runs on older machines?
Maybe try OpenShot?
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@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
a good, user friendly, basic open source video editor that runs on older machines?
How basic? Like, VLMC?
www.videolan.org/vlmc/index.html
'course, there aren't any public builds out there, really, but for simplicity you can't get much more basic than that...
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@pydsigner said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
OpenShot
No 32 bit version?
@Tsaukpaetra said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
How basic? Like, VLMC?
Not ready for beta testing? How unfinished is it exactly?
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@Luhmann Now you're just being hydrophobic.
Filed Under: Nurse! 50ccs of rabies vaccine, stat!
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@ScholRLEA
Holy Necro! You think I remember what I said 10 months ago?
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@Luhmann No, I just happened to see this thread for the first time and found that comment funny.
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@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@pydsigner said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
OpenShot
No 32 bit version?
@Tsaukpaetra said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
How basic? Like, VLMC?
Not ready for beta testing? How unfinished is it exactly?
Very, lol. Literally I think it just instances two VLC players, something for the timeline, and... that's about it.
I hear it might be more updated if you compile it directly, but then you'd have compiler all over you...
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@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
No 32 bit version?
Looks like you could build it yourself maybe.
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@ScholRLEA said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
found that comment funny.
Of course it is ... It's a True Luhmann Original
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@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
No 32 bit version?
Maybee try avidemux then? OpenShot is definitely the best available opensource video editor though. Depends on what features your brother needs...
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@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
No 32 bit version?
The world of desktops and laptops has made the leap to 64-bit. At lastβ¦
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@Polygeekery said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
It sounds to me like your dad is the one doing the shitty job. Your family needs to find a good handyman. Yes, good ones do exist.
Good handypersons do exist. Good computer repair persons, not so much.
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@dkf said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
No 32 bit version?
The world of desktops and laptops has made the leap to 64-bit. At lastβ¦
The DEC 21064 dates from fucking 24 years ago, and they even sold it with Windows NT.
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@LaoC said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@dkf said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
No 32 bit version?
The world of desktops and laptops has made the leap to 64-bit. At lastβ¦
The DEC 21064 dates from fucking 24 years ago, and they even sold it with Windows NT.
I just wrote things like
@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
our 10 years old desktop computer
buying a new computer is a big decision for a family
video editor that runs on older machines
but have fun on the trolleybus.
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@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@LaoC said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@dkf said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
No 32 bit version?
The world of desktops and laptops has made the leap to 64-bit. At lastβ¦
The DEC 21064 dates from fucking 24 years ago, and they even sold it with Windows NT.
I just wrote things like
@marczellm said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
our 10 years old desktop computer
buying a new computer is a big decision for a family
video editor that runs on older machines
but have fun on the trolleybus.
I think 24 years can count as pretty old. And in case you missed it, this DEC chip was a 64-bit machine for the desktop.
I just find it funny how many people think of 64-bit machines as a post-2010 thing.
As for video editing, if you can get your hands on a Video Toaster, 7.16 MHz CPU clock do just fine.
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@LaoC said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
Video Toaster
Oh, so that's what we're running NodeBB on...
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@Maciejasjmj said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
@LaoC said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
Video Toaster
Oh, so that's what we're running NodeBB on...
Must be the Screamer version.
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@LaoC said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
I just find it funny how many people think of 64-bit machines as a post-2010 thing.
I was using one a little bit back in the early 1990s, but it was a real rarity then (it was a demonstrator Alpha system at DEC). The first systems to really switch to 64-bit were the supercomputers, a little bit later. They were really quite quirky in many ways, but at least they were getting benefit from being 64-bit as they were run by centres that could afford enough memory to justify it. It was later on that workstations really made the jump (typically running Unix) and desktops and laptops were later still.
It all tracks the cost of memory; when 4GB (or more) of memory was beyond ordinary budgets, nobody cared about 64-bit builds of OSs. But once it was economic to have the extra memory, the OS changes were mandatory.
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@LaoC said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
I just find it funny how many people think of 64-bit machines as a post-2010 thing.
As recently as 2014, EA was still selling games (at least one of their best sellers) that were only available in 32-bit. Of course, that says more about EA than the state of 32- vs. 64-bit computing.
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@HardwareGeek said in Are all service centers worth if I use Win98?:
As recently as 2014, EA was still selling games (at least one of their best sellers) that were only available in 32-bit.
If the software works (and modern 64-bit OSes are often able to run 32-bit programs provided the right libraries are present) then why change it? You don't do a rebuild just for giggles. OTOH if they were doing complicated paging to manage more memory than what was comfortably possible in 32-bits, that'd be a proper WTF.