A rchive Date
[ 22-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Microsoft ]
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[Time to blame Microsoft
By JARED KENDALL -- CNEWS Tech News
Windows 95 is directly responsible for the decline of Western civilization as we know it. At least as far as computers go.
I've come to this conclusion in a roundabout manner, but I think my reasoning is sound. Before Win95, computers were tools we spoke of with a sort of scientific clarity. Now a muddled sort of doubt leaves us with a relationship that involves just as much superstition as it does hard science. And it's all because of the New World Order Windows 95 heralded.
The collapse came about in two ways. First, the way we looked at maintenance changed. If you were an even moderately serious computer user before Win95, you probably remember terms like conventional memory. Expanded memory. Extended memory. Don't worry if those terms mean nothing to you. They're archaic throwbacks to a time when how we measured and improved upon performance in ways radically different from the present.
The golden rule in computing has always been, "Make Sure you have Plenty of Memory".
What Windows did was change what "Plenty" meant, and most importantly, how we got it. Before, you got it by fiddling and buying programs that fiddled for you. After, you got it by buying a system that had lots of memory.
That's a big difference. It's like the difference between buying a car that ran smoothly because you tuned it up every weekend, and one that ran smoothly because the computer tuned it up as you drove. And here's the hitch: When the computer does it for you, you don't tune it up yourself. You don't learn how it all works. You're just along for the ride.
Do cars break down less today? Yes. Do we know an awful lot less about how to fix them than previous generations of owners? Of course.
Managing conventional memory wasn't the only chore Windows took care of, it also went a long way towards removing old-fashioned headaches like IRQ conflicts, which is another of the terms that is rapidly becoming obsolete.
By itself, making our lives easier wouldn't be the end of the world.
But Windows hasn't been an entirely benevolent interloper. Not only does it remove the hands-on role of the user, it also brought us to not only accept but to expect random errors from our machines. It taught us that not only did they break, but you couldn't predict when they'd break, and you couldn't always figure out why they broke. They just broke. You rebooted and got on with your life.
Combined, we went from being fairly confident and knowledgeable nerds to being rather paranoid and somewhat ignorant users.
Yes, not everyone was a nerd in the "good old days". Yes, there are still plenty of people who know their machines backwards and forwards. True, Intel does deserve some of the blame for going from a rational, numeric system of naming central processing unit (CPU) chips to their current Pentium, Celeron, Xenon, different-name-for-each-flavour naming system.
But Microsoft gets the lion's share of the blame.
They gave us calculators so we'd quit learning how to do long division at the same time that they introduced us to a system of math where adding 1 plus 1 can cause your desk to catch fire. Or your brain to lock up.
I used to think there was a rational, discrete reason for any mistake or problem someone encountered with their computer. Now I assume it's normal unless they have the problem more than twice a day or so. And even then I might just blame it on bad vibes.
Or Microsoft.
 World Fact Book (CIA)
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