Re: can I use Apple II with a vga/dvi monitor? how to get software?

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

The Wizard of Oz wrote:

>     Man they were lucky. When Word crashed my system the disks wouldn't 
> even mount/read. The only thing to do was reformat and reinstall. 
> Normally you'd expect the problems of this nature to happen to the C: 
> drive. It took out the D: drive too.

While I don't doubt that you were running Word when this happened,
it sounds much more likely that a hardware error caused your system
to run amok.  A problem in communication between the CPU, the IDE
controller, and the drive chain (with both drives) can do almost
anything.

It could even (some would say most likely) be a virus--it's hard
to kill multiple drives with software by accident.  ;-)

Anecdotal evidence is not very good evidence, since virtually everyone's
system has a different hardware and software configuration.  Only if the
problem were repeatable could it be diagnosed to its root cause.

Someone somewhere has had a Linux system bite the big one, but I'm sure
you wouldn't use that to disqualify Linux as a usable platform.

Of course, a journaled file system, as all modern systems have now, is
a wonderful thing--as long as something doesn't turn on all the write
heads and start seeking!  ;-)

>     I won't argue Windows has a large software base. However if you take 
> a measure of the quality of the software available you'll find there are 
> a lot of terrible programs out there produced by guys who just want to 
> make a fast buck.

That is true of everything--see Sturgeon's Law.

-michael

NadaNet file server for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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