Windows 8 -- Just shoot me now.

[crfriend]

It was bound to happen, Sapphire's laptop finally got to the point where it was unusable (likely a combination of rootkits and hardware problems) and she bought a new one. Despite my counsel that she avoid Windows 8 as the UI has changed dramatically (as observed by a colleague of mine at work) the new arrival has Windows 8 on it because that's all that was available. And my colleague was right -- it's weird.

I've been working on this for well over two hours, and only just got the wireless network running (my home wireless network is well locked-down), e-mail configured (again, well locked-down), Office installed, and Solitaire (gotta have that!) set up. I still haven't figured out how to put a startup icon for Solitaire on the taskbar.

I have been a computing professional for a third of a century, and this thing has humbled me with its obfuscation and needless complexity.

FOO! It's time for beer and Chinese food!

[Tor]

Makes me glad that I evicted Win XP from my computer almost five years ago, and never looked back. That computer served me well until a year and a half ago, and it's successor serves well with ratpoison (most results with that search have nothing to do with four legged rodents:)) managing my windows on a nice GNU/Linux base.

Hope that system dares not provide further frustration, scant though the chance may be.

Tor

[Sarongman]

I've heard enough AGIN Windows 8 that I am putting W.7 Professional on my new desktop CPU, and if this new *%#@"+^ system has Carl beat then I am totally confirmed in steering clear.After all, it has taken me a long time to learn my way round my 3 year old mobile phone enough to confidently send the images to the lab. machines for printing without having to ask the young assistant, and be treated sympathetically as a slightly senile old fart.

[crfriend]

Hope that system dares not provide further frustration, scant though the chance may be.

This is a user thing with my wife; she's set in her ways and knows the Microsoft millieu enough to get done what needs doing. I've tried to get her to use Linux in the past, but there's just too much stuff out there that seems to mandate Windows (for instance, the town we live in frequently sends stuff out in Wurd [sic] format).

It's a battle not worth fighting.

[... I]f this new *%#@"+^ system has Carl beat then I am totally confirmed in steering clear.

I'll beat this thing back, and of that I have no doubt (It's VMS and RSX-11 based after all), but it's the blasted learning curve on an obtuse GUI (Why Cutler couldn't have purloined DCL is beyond me) that's clearly designed for keyboardless computers (smart-phones on steroids). Underneath, it'll be a nice filesystem that I'll be able to navigate using the command-line tools (computers are computers, after all), and with that I'll hopefully be able to stitch something together that my wife will be able to use gracefully. That will be in the morning. The Chinese food was good and the beer is starting to take welcome effect.

Of note, even Sapphire commented this evening at dinner, "Where's my ASR-33?" on the matter. Nerds of a feather we are.

[skirted_in_SF]

This is a user thing with my wife; she's set in her ways and knows the Microsoft millieu enough to get done what needs doing. I've tried to get her to use Linux in the past, but there's just too much stuff out there that seems to mandate Windows (for instance, the town we live in frequently sends stuff out in Wurd [sic] format).

Carl - LibreOffice appears to open .docx documents. Since it is a spinoff of OpenOffice, it should be available for Linux. I use it on Win7, I had used Linux for years (Xandros) but when I bought a new Dell I installed Linux Mint and tried to use it. It ended up being unstable, so I settled for Window7 which came with the computer.

Of note, even Sapphire commented this evening at dinner, "Where's my ASR-33?" on the matter. Nerds of a feather we are.

TTY? OMG!

[Charlie]

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 from Canonical. This is linux-based and runs everything I need. Wurd [sic] can be opened in Libreoffice and for any Windoze-only programs there's always the Wine emulator which runs Dreamweaver and Paintshop pro.

I went down the linux route to get away from win XP which I had to use at work. So using linux (plus wearing a skirt) made a complete and refreshing break from the work world And I haven't had to purchase a virus checker (perhaps I've been lucky so far...)

Charlie

[Sinned]

I am from the old school, having graduated with a CompSci degree in 1988 and mourne the passing of the command line. Seems that Microsoft has steered the ubiquitous PC away from a general purpose machine it was with thousands of applications written for it to an internet access/office machine. A complete mistake in my opinion. I miss being able to easily write programs in the C/Pascal family of languages and compile them to produce little applications for my amusement. Not easy to do that any longer so the fun of the PC is mostly dead for me. I did use Linux for a while as I used UNIX a lot but as I'm not involved with computers to any extent and my wife is only used to Bindows I had to give that up. The trouble is that 99.9999% of machines come bundled with the latest version of Bindows now so trying to get an older copy of Bindows isn't easy. BG III is the biggest traitor to computing ever IMHO. Sigh!!!!

BTW I couldn't find the beating head against a wall smiley on page 3 of the smilies.

[PatJ]

I had difficulty adjusting to Windows 8, but after working with it for a while, I am able to navigate my way around fairly well.

The change in Windows 8 from previous versions of Windows, is about as radical as changing from DOS to Windows. It requires one to readjust ones thinking and learn to do things in a different way.

Perhaps some of the readers here are familiar with "smart phones" and apps. Windows 8 operates more like a smart phone. Once I figured which apps I used most, I was able to set up the screen to feature those apps and it was pretty much back to business as usual.

Personally, I prefer Windows 7 to Windows 8. Oh well, I figured it is grow or get left behind and I am not ready to give up yet.

[crfriend]

I am from the old school, having graduated with a CompSci degree in 1988 and mourne the passing of the command line.

"Old School" is more of a state of mind than anything else. I got my formal computer education at Control Data Institute (a trade school to which I went to get a piece of paper) in 1979 and by 1980 was working on PDP-10 super-minis supporting world-wide timesharing. Before that I had deep exposure to the Data General NOVA and Interdata Model 3 machines and a few programming languages (BASIC, FORTAN (2 versions thereof), ALGOL, and at least three assemblers); I'd also worked on computer hardware. I've bounced back and forth between assorted gigs in computing over the years and try to keep my skills sharp in a wide range of things related so I can keep my beloved "elder systems" alive and running (this means everything from hardware repair to remembering how all the different OSes work and what all the different instruction sets do and how each machine does things internally). So, I'd call myself "Old School" as well.

Seems that Microsoft has steered the ubiquitous PC away from a general purpose machine it was with thousands of applications written for it to an internet access/office machine. A complete mistake in my opinion.

I agree in this respect; computers are not the general-purpose devices they used to be. They seem to have become a channel by which advertising is shoved at consumers in an attempt to make them consume even more. I love the advertising panels built right into Windows 8's menus; I found that feature bug this morning and was most thoroughly not amused by it.

I miss being able to easily write programs in the C/Pascal family of languages and compile them to produce little applications for my amusement. Not easy to do that any longer so the fun of the PC is mostly dead for me. I did use Linux for a while as I used UNIX a lot but as I'm not involved with computers to any extent and my wife is only used to Bindows I had to give that up.

I think I've forgotten more programming languages than most folks will ever know and tend to do my heavy lifting now in C (although I frequently prototype in Perl). I regard ALGOL as being an improvement over most of its descendents (C/Pascal &c.) and COBOL as the best tool going for business applications that do not require the "bling" of GUIs and detest most of the OO languages as they're so good at obfuscating things they're really good at hiding bugs and just plain bad code.

My "work" and "production" systems are mostly Linux or Solaris (although I have IRIX systems as multimedia devices) and just simply work. I like it that way. The only time I have to fuss with them is whey they either have hardware faults or the disks start filling up. My "play" system is an older Windows 7 laptop that Sapphire purchased a couple of years ago when the hard disk in her old computer seemed to fail (it turned out to be a loose connection that I readily fixed, but by then the new machine was already here); I run this one locked down tight and make sure that everything is as up-to-date as possible.

BG III is the biggest traitor to computing ever IMHO. Sigh!!!!

I don't see it that way; I see Gates as being a lucky little yuppie who was fortunate to be in precisely the right place at precisely the right time. Yes, Microsoft did set the industry back by a decade and by virtue of lax coding standards has enabled havoc to be wrought in the computing world, but I don't see it as treasonous. What I mourned in the late 1970s was the overnight death of all the innovation that was going on in the small-computer arena when IBM announced the "PC" -- that was an act tantamount to treason. In 1979 one could buy a desktop system that supported multiple users on advanced operating systems running on 16-bit chips, big (for the time) disk drives, large memories, and even graphics (In this case I am thinking of DG's "Desktop Generation" machines and 16-bit AOS which was several generations ahead of PC-DOS). All pushed aside by the might of IBM and a silly little startup. So sad.

BTW I couldn't find the beating head against a wall smiley on page 3 of the smilies.

It's in there, you may need to look a bit further. The BBcode for it by the way is "space:wall:space" (sans quotes) like this: .

One interesting thing about Windows 8 is that the company I work for is treating it like Vista -- they're going to skip over it and remain on 7. The hit to productivity (and profit) as everyone in the company has to retrain would be massive. This was a very bad move on Microsoft's part for their commercial customers -- very bad. I can see Windows 8 as an idiom for tablets and "smart" 'phones, but not for "work computers" with keyboards and mice; anybody that thinks one can be productive using a flat-panel "keyboard" has never used a real keyboard.

[Tor]

I can relate to the user unwillingness to change. The only non-Linux systems I have to deal with are macs, which at least have a Unix base. The OSX dock, however, is possibly the most miserable excuse for window management I can recall having had the misfortune to have to work with. From the little I've heard, though, W8 bids fair to taking the title should I have the misfortune to cross swords (do I hear aright?) with it.

I may not recall the time, but I still lament the near complete destruction of the command line as a way of using a computer. Long live ls, grep, wc, sort, pipes, and the rest of the guts of the user interface. No system of mine can properly be said to be up and running without at least one terminal going.

Seems there are a decent percentage who have current familiarity with and like more than a WIMP interface, perfectly suited though that may be to some tasks. Any others who have found and like Conkeror as a browser? (hope I'm not straying too close to holy war territory here:))

Tor

[Zorba]

You guys are wimps. REAL men code in assembly - when they're feeling lazy; flip code in from the front panel in binary when they're not! You're only allowed to use the ASR-33 if you wrote the I/O routines for it! Be sure to save your code by an ASCII Hex dump to the paper tape punch.

Agree though with most of what's been written - although I'm no fan of ALGOL syntax. The IBM PC was laughed at by the serious computerists of the day as it combined the worst attributes of the Apple ][ and the TRS-80 - and the best attributes of neither. DOS was a bad clone of CP/M. As a result, the early adopters were hobbiest grade people who brought their hobbiest grade programming practices with them - Micro$oft included (Oh, the stories I could tell...). The situation hasn't changed much in the intervening 32 years. I'll swear most current "programmers" couldn't pass CS 101!

As for Windoze 8 - this is the biggest unmitigated disaster in PC History! Everyone I know is bypassing it. I really want full screen "Apps" (Smart fone speak - but it does beat "Software Program") on a 30 inch monitor - welcome back to 1979.

I've been using Apple for the last decade - and was seriously considering going back to Windoze as Win 7 is actually pretty good and I'm tired of the brain dead stupidity from Apple. Half their stupidity would put ANY other company outta business, but because its Apple, everything they do is considered a Good Thing (tm). But now with Win 8 - NO WAY. But Apple faithful shouldn't cheer too loudly - OS X and iOS are converging in a similar manner.

Probably go back to Linux - I got tired of fixing everything, but at least it *could* be fixed.

As for Win 8 - if you're stuck with it, install "Classic Shell", and replace any of the Metro "Apps" that you need with real Programs and it isn't too awfully painful anymore...

[kingfish]

Just from reading the other posts here it has become clear to me that Windows 8 is a result of Microsoft trying to leverage its monopoly power over the personal computer market to gain a foothold in the cell phone market. By making the windows 8 a style compatible with the cell phones and tablets, they are forcing their PC audience to learn a user interface that they're marketing on the smaller more mobile gadgets.

They are banking on useful idiots, and those that just don't want to expend the effort to think about the gizmo they're using will gravitate towards *their* phone because it has the same front end as the PC they were forced to learn.

And as for this lamenting the regression of the operating system by advent of the PC....
My first programming experience happened to be on a Multics system, the O.S. that the UNIX authors knocked off and emasculated.

As for the basics of computing, I'm finding a certain joy in seeing the basics starting to be taught again in the small iron embedded systems (e.g. Arduino, PIC, Raspberry PI, etc.) There's nothing like not having an API around to simplify the process of learning how make a state machine.

[crfriend]

My first programming experience happened to be on a Multics system, the O.S. that the UNIX authors knocked off and emasculated.

MULTICS is definitely something I would have liked to have a go at. Some of the originals are simply just so much better than the new stuff. At least from what I've read, MULTICS got a hell of a large number of things right, which UNIX just doesn't do. Of course MULTICS whent through a rigourous research, development, and release process; UNIX was an escapee that was cheap and folks gravitated to it because of that not because it is inherently "good".

Of course now, there are effectively only a handful of operating systems left (*NIX of assorted flavours and Windows/Mica) and effectively only one processor type (Intel), at least in the non-embedded world.

As for the basics of computing, I'm finding a certain joy in seeing the basics starting to be taught again in the small iron embedded systems (e.g. Arduino, PIC, Raspberry PI, etc.) There's nothing like not having an API around to simplify the process of learning how make a state machine.

There is some joy in that, but I would find more if it was being done at the hardware level to give the younger set an idea as to how stuff actually works in the physical world. Sometimes things like front-panels are useful.

I keep contemplating a Pi, but can't really find a proper use for one, and I don't have the same amount of time to play as when I was younger (the adult stuff just gets in the way).

[Zorba]

I didn't know that about Multics and Unix - although I held that c's popularity was a self fulfilling prophecy. - even at the time.

So, which would you rather have, Unix or a bastardized descendant of Tops 10/Tops 20?

I said MANY years ago, that if I never saw another line of Intel code, it would be exactly 27 seconds too soon. I *LOVED* the 6809, and the 68K...

[crfriend]

I didn't know that about Multics and Unix - although I held that c's popularity was a self fulfilling prophecy. - even at the time.

C has its place -- as a portable assembler. It's also worth noting that it's possible to write crap code in any programming language.

So, which would you rather have, Unix or a bastardized descendant of Tops 10/Tops 20?

RDOS for lightweight applications and either AOS/VS or TOPS-20 for heavyweights. I was so disappointed in what I saw in a TOPS-10 code dive that it still hurts.

I said MANY years ago, that if I never saw another line of Intel code, it would be exactly 27 seconds too soon. I *LOVED* the 6809, and the 68K...

Oh, it's just one more architecture. When I think of all the ones I've fiddled with over the years at the assembly level they all start to look pretty similar. Of course then there's the VAX's POLY instruction which set a new standard of what not to do with microcode.