On Apr 25, 2008, at 4:01 PM, Carl Dassbach wrote:
Interesting question - is software timeless. Not really, or we would and could be using software written for IBM machines of the 50s or CPM machines of the early 1980s. Software, whether applications or operating systems, is to a large measure specific to hardware. You can not run CPM on a modern computer and I doubt if you could find a usable CPM machine today, Conversely, one of the problems with Vista is that it requires a hefty processor and lots of memory and so you can't even run it on early Pentium machines. So, I would say that software isn't timeless, it is historically and technologically specific.
Well no kidding. That's why I said "theoretically." As long as you have a machine, though, you can run the software. Until recently I was running a Mac OS 9 statistical program from the late 1980s. That's not forever, but 20 years isn't exactly overnight either.
But as the poet said, "Wir gehen wie Rauch vor starkem Wind," if I'm remembering my German plague poetry correctly. Or, if you prefer Kansas: "All we are is dust in the wind."
Doug _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
