Nuke Redmond!

[Boris Gimbarzevsky]

Unfortunately, I have to use Windoze as most medical software is M$ 
centric.  Also, started using VB in about 1991 which allowed me to 
create windows easily rather than using Hypercard on Mac.  As with 
most M$ programs, they decided to replace a perfectly functional VB6 
which allowed one to incoporate assembly code (Hardcore VB was an 
excellent resource for getting as close as one could to hardware in 
windoze) with VB.NET which is a POS.

Stuck with a huge codebase of VB6 programs that I use daily and still 
haven't yet succeeded in getting VB6 programs to run under Wine on my 
Linux machines.  Wine, however does run all of my old 16 and 32 bit 
programs.  Have XP running in VirtualBox and run my old Mac code in 
BasiliskII.  Soon as get VB6 running under Linux, will say goodbye to M$ crap.

There's a huge number of old machines out there and have systems 
ranging from original XP's to 80486 based laptops which are very nice 
as dedicated machines for data acquisition.  In typical M$ fashion, 
they came out with PenWindoze in 1991 or so, when got my first tablet 
PC, and then totally changed digital ink format when they came out 
with their *new and improved* version in 2000 tablet PC's.  Have a 
number of these old machines and M$ was actually helpfull in 
providing details of their new ink format and wrote some neat drawing 
programs where one can time every stroke and alter the drawing.  Of 
course, when I asked for the initial ink format it appears that they 
"lost" it, likely because it was "too old".  Have lots of drawings 
that I did in early 1990's that I can see as long as the laptops they 
were done on continue to function, but porting it to "new and 
improved" ink format is something I don't have time for.

Planned obsolesence seems to be standard M$ policy as well as the 
assumption that no person in their right mind would use hardware 
that's very ancient, like 10 years old.

>On 10/07/2019 12:26 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
>>
>>I hear you--I've been on Linux for day-to-day stuff for quite a few
>>years, but keep a copy of XP on VirtualBox just in case.
>>
>>Some of the older systems that I have legacy peripherals in also require
>>Windows, but it's all old versions.
>>
>>I recently convinced my lovely wife to make the leap to Linux.   She
>>really likes it.
>I've been using Linux since 1998 when I started using the EMC 
>program for CNC machines, which ran on a real time version of 
>Linux.  I quickly saw I could do most normal things better on Linux.
>I now use Win XP and Win 7 for just a FEW programs which are not 
>available on Linux.  One is an old but VERY good electronic CAD 
>package (Protel 99 SE, the 99 kind of gives away the vintage!)
>and my yearly tax filing program, which now required Win 7.
>I run these as needed in a virtual machine.  First I used VMware, 
>but later moved to Virtual Box.
>
>My family used Linux when here, but they have all moved out now, one 
>daughter has a Dell laptop that I set up with Linux, and my wife 
>uses Linux and they both find it works quite well for them.
>
>Jon