"Demystification" is just as important as "Abstraction" in "Computer Science" (Was: Know any Fortran

[Dave Wade]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck
> Guzis
> Sent: 31 October 2015 01:12
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: "Demystification" is just as important as "Abstraction" in
> "Computer Science" (Was: Know any Fortran
> 
> On 10/30/2015 05:18 PM, Dave Wade wrote:
> > Why? Hardware hasn't really got much faster over the last four years.
> > More CPU's have been added. In hardware terms anything that runs XP
> > well will run anything later.
> > There might be missing drivers, but in general its not a spec problem.
> 
> I run XP on non-SSE2 hardware, but I suspect W10 demands it--certainly,
> many browsers do.

Possibly, but if it does I would expect Windows/7, 8  and 8.1 to also need
it.  

On looking on YOUTUBE someone claims to have installed one of the Windows/10
beta's on a P3.
Wikipedia tells me the P4 was the first chip with SSE2 so perhaps Windows/10
will run without SSE2.
SSE2 isn't exactly "leading edge" technology. It dates back to P4 in 2001 so
is actually older than the XP. 
Also whilst XP would run on a small machine it was dire. 
I once was sent to look at a 256Mhz PII running XP to see if I could speed
it up. Must have have been 2008 or 9 I think.
Whilst fiddling I accidentally swapped the mouse and keyboard connections
only to find it wouldn't boot set up like that.
I left it that way and no one else figured out what was wrong so the user
got their PC upgraded...


> 
> --Chuck

Dave