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

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <17vmi.120265$1i1.104794@pd7urf3no>,
The Wizard of Oz  <wizard@emeraldcity.gov> wrote:

> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>> In article <RL7mi.114117$NV3.3285@pd7urf2no>,
>> The Wizard of Oz  <wizard@emeraldcity.gov> wrote:
>> 
>>> Paul Schlyter wrote:
>>>> In article <l%Mli.111516$NV3.19072@pd7urf2no>,
>> .............
>>>>>         This was back in 2000. No administrator accounts.
>>>> Windows NT had admin and user accounts before 2000 ....
>>>         Never said I was running an NT class of Windows.
>> 
>> Most people didn't back then - but you could have, if stability and
>> robustness had been important enough for you.  On my work I ran NT
>> from 1995 and on.... I never had a disk crash.
> 
>         I couldn't afford NT back then.

Neither could I - for my private computer.  But didn't this bad crash
happen on your job computer?  Was your boss penny-wise and pound-foolish?

>>>>>> 2. You didn't back up your stuff properly - so you lost a months (sic!)
>>>>>> worth of work instead of merely a few hours worth of work.
>>>>>         It WAS backed up. To the second hard drive in the same system.
>>>> :-)
>>>>
>>>> A really proper backup shouldn't just be stored outside your computer,
>>>> but even in a different building!  The building where you're working
>>>> can catch fire.....
>>>         Correct. However you have to work with the constraints of what you 
>>> have. If all you can afford is a second hard drive in the same machine 
>>> then that's all you can do. It's a different story now though. 
>>> Especially since people are scrapping fully functional machines just to 
>>> run Vista.
>> 
>> A backup doesn't have to reside in another computer to be "elsewhere"!
>> You could have written your backups to CD-R or DVD-R disks, or backup
>> tapes, and then stored the backup media somewhere else.  Today you can
>> also put your backups on some suitable storage space on the Internet.
> 
> Back then the burners were starting to drop in price from the $2000 
> mark. The media was still around $10 per disk. Over the next year and a 
> half the price of the burners dropped to around $250 (I picked up a used 
> one for $50) and the media dropped to under $1.00 per disk.

Tape backup was the norm back then, true, and it wasn't terribly cheap
either.  But how much did that lost month of work due to that bad
crash cost?

There was one fairly cheap backup medium, available already in 2000,
though: the Zip disk, which could hold some 100 MBytes of data (later
250 MBytes).  If that was too small, you had the Jaz disk which held
one GByte of data.  In 1998 when I got a new personal PC, I put a Zip
disk into that machine (floppy backups were just too tedious).

Of course, one can also adopt the "macho style" and yell:  "You're a
coward if you take backups!!!"  <g>

................................................

>> I did this on a friend's computer the other week: their computer just
>> refused to boot.  When trying to boot the system CD and telling it to
>> either reinstall Windows or reformat the drive, the system CD got so
>> confused by the damaged registry that it crashed!  So I bought a new
>> harddrive for them, reinstalled Windows on it, installed their
>> original harddrive as a secondary drive and then I could just read all
>> their data from the original drive without problems.  A virus scanning
>> program later found some viruses on that harddrive -- now they've
>> learnt to _not_ log in to an administrator's account all the time....
> 
> 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.

C: and D: aren't drives - they are partitions.  True, you can have one
partition per drive, but you can also have several partitions per drive.
So C: and D: could both reside on the same drive, if you so wish.

>>>         My solution of scrapping Microsoft for everything but games works very 
>>> well for me. YMMV. Of course there are those who believe the propaganda 
>>> and will never consider the option.
>> 
>> One should of course not believe in any propaganda - neither the
>> propaganda that says you shouldn't run anything but Micro$oft'$ stuff,
>> nor the propaganda that says you should avoid Microsoft like the
>> plague.  As usual, the truth is somewhere in between.
> 
> True. What I described works for *ME*.

You mean Windows ME ?     :-))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

> My philosophy is anybody else 
> can do what ever the heck they want with their own computer. I'll give 
> advice when asked (like this time). My advice is to try a bunch of 
> different things and go with what works. Since a lot of people are 
> advocating M$, I have no need to go over the same material they have. To 
> get back to the VM thread, VMs work well. They generally don't take down 
> an entire system. Install them on a stable and secure box then have fun.
> 
>> The major advantage of Windows is the very large amount of software
>> available for it, which means you're most likely to find the
>> application you need for that OS.  That's why Linux has Wine, and
>> that's why modern Macs also can run Windows.  And that's why you run
>> your games on Windows rather than on Linux..... :-)
> 
> 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. I should know.

Indeed true.... so you'd better sort that out.  However the bad stuff
usually carry properties you can recognize: flashy boxes or envelopes,
and little info about the software itself, no way to get upgrades or
bug fixes, etc etc etc.

> I reviewed my fair share of terrible 
> games for Digital Civilization and Call-A.P.P.L.E.. I've also talked 
> with a number of developers. A lot of the more successful games under 
> Windows are developed under BSD and Linux then ported to the Windows 
> environment. The main reason people don't see these games for *NIX is 
> because of the various agreements signed with Microsoft. I won't even 
> talk about what happened to Loki Software.

Games don't really matter here IMO -- they're for entertainment only and
not doing much useful.  Actually, I'd prefer to not hog up a whole
computer just for games, but instead use some game console for that.
Then your computer won't be busy when your kids are playing games.....  :-)

>         In terms of running the same software under Windows or something 
> else... I've always found less problems with the actual programs (the 
> third party add ons are another story) when I get away from Windows. 
> Again, this is where running a VM helps.
> 
>                                 Later
>                                 Mike
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