Hi Charles, Smile. And that's about it. The shape of the record and the CD may be the same, but the actual mechanics of how they work is totally different. A phonograph follows the grooves in the record with a needle producing an analog reproduction of the sound/music. A CD player uses a laser to read the bumps and lines on the disc to render a digital reproduction of the sound. The changes in the Windows OS over the last 14 years is in its own way almost as dramatic comparatively speaking.
In 1998 a developer wishing to make his/her application accessible to screen readers would use Microsoft Active Accessibility, MSAA, which is now deprecated. As of Windows 7 and Windows 8 Microsoft has a new API called UI Automation that largely replaces MSAA and is the new accessibility model all Windows screen readers must follow to use Windows 7 and Windows 8 applications. DirectX technology has changed as well. When Win 98 was released it shipped with DirectX 7, but all of those libraries have been largely replaced with different ones. DirectDraw has been replaced by Direct3D 11, DirectSound with XAudio2, and it looks like XInput will eventually replace DirectInput for input handling. Therefore DirectX is totally diffrent from the Win 9x era games and applications. In 98 Visual Basic 6 was considered to be the beginner/entry level programming language for Windows programmers. Obviously as of Windows 7 the Visual Basic libraries are no longer a part of the OS, and has been replaced by the .NET Framework and languages like C# .NET and Visual Basic .NET. While it is technically possible to still use VB 6 its not recommended as Windows 7 and Windows 8 is all geared for .NET development. That's just the beginning. I haven't even began to talk about changes in the interface like the removal of the menu bars, tool bars, and the introduction of the menu ribbons or the fact in Windows 8 the Start Menu has been completely removed and has been replaced by the Metro screen. As of Windows 8 you now have programs, full blown programs, and apps, little applets, that run in the background. The apps are small little programs like weather reports, stock tickers, rss feeds,and even a stripped down version of Internet Explorer for checking web mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Bottom line, Windows has evolved quite a lot in the last 14 years, and both the UI and even the libraries/components that make up the OS is totally different from Windows 98. There is a certain amount of old libraries and components left around for backwards compatibility but eventually it will all get tossed out in favor of the new stuff.Just like what happened to peoples records and 45s when everyone decided to switch to CD players instead. Cheers! On 6/2/12, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote: > Tom: You say that "Comparatively speaking Windows 98 is to Windows 7 as > record players are to CD players." They're not the same? They both play > circular disks, don't they? (ornery grin) > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
