Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video) • Hacker News Board

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#71

Post by Groxx » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:27 AM UTC

Best possible music choice. Period.

Fascinating.

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#72

Post by badmonkey0001 » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:38 AM UTC

badmonkey0001 wrote: post #33

jacques_chester wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea. We ought to set up a donation drive. edit: I was not being sarcastic. I wouldn't mind chipping a few bucks if a hat is going around.

I thought it a good idea. His name is Peter Tattam (I did some google-leg-work to find it). His site is at http://petertattam.com/ . I found his name via a report at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.40.... If this is the guy, what should we do? Should somebody ask him what he would like?

I contacted Peter and he got back to me. He seems to have settled well with how the cards fell and didn't seem worried about being compensated for things long past.

However, if any of you figure out some grand gesture to show appreciation please count me in. To me, he helped the web get started... An unsung hero. :)

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#73

Post by kenjackson » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:42 AM UTC

verisimilitude wrote: post #64

kenjackson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I'd read this post earlier. I not only watched it but sent it to friends, never thinking that this actually might not be enjoyable to everyone. Isn't there a conference somewhere that specializes in boring topics?

You might be thinking of "Boredom Enthusiasts Discover the Pleasures of Understimulation": http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870339590457602...

Yes, that's it. Maybe he can make a talk of this for the next conference. "Observing the Installation of Every Version of Windows".

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#74

Post by kenjackson » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:49 AM UTC

k3dz wrote: post #65

ladon86 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, Windows actually checked whether SimCity was running and then allocated memory differently if it was. Joel Spolsky talks about it in this old article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html

More about Microsoft and backward compatibility is here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

There's a blog run by Raymond Chen, one of the engineers on the backwards compat team, which is about backwards compat and other arcane aspects of Windows:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#75

Post by haribilalic » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 3:02 AM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #25

He left out Windows ME. I guess that would be too much to ask.

ME was released after 2000, but 2000 could not be "upgraded" to ME.

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#76

Post by stoney » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 3:03 AM UTC

machrider wrote: post #61

mildweed wrote: post #28

Site is Farked. Youtube direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnehDhGa14

It's funny, I submitted this in non-blogspam form this morning and it didn't get nearly as popular: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2279618 I wonder if it's just luck or timing or this guy using spambots to upvote his submission.

The title is different on the two submissions. Could have been a factor?

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#77

Post by jacques_chester » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 3:22 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #46

badmonkey0001 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it a good idea. His name is Peter Tattam (I did some google-leg-work to find it). His site is at http://petertattam.com/ . I found his name via a report at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.40.... If this is the guy, what should we do? Should somebody ask him what he would like?

His site seems to be down, but I found his company in the whitepages. I've left a message for him to call me back. I'm going to suggest that he sets up a paypal account we can contribute to. I will also set up a website at lunch time, I think.

He rang me back.

He's a bit surprised by the sudden attention and says he will be commenting on the thread soon.

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#78

Post by alphakappa » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 3:26 AM UTC

Am I the only one that noticed that his account username in Windows 2000 was 'twatface'?

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#79

Post by icey » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 3:27 AM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #25

He left out Windows ME. I guess that would be too much to ask.

He also forgot about Bob.

Re: Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 (video)

#80

Post by flomo » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 3:42 AM UTC

moe wrote: post #42

warfangle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never used the upgrade option. I'd always get a new hard drive with my upgrade (to get OEM price) and install clean, usually using the original hard drive as a slave. The next cycle that hard drive would become an archive on the new slave. I have backed up files from 1996 on my home desktop.

Didn't everyone do it that way? I tried the upgrade-option exactly once. I can't remember whether it preserved my background color. But I do remember that all sorts of drivers got screwed, software installs would fail with obscure error messages, and it generally was nothing but problems until I finally wiped and re-installed.

I upgraded from NT4 -> 2000 -> XP without any major issues. AFAICT it was mostly just a file replacement process.

The DOSWin to NT upgrade path always seemed pretty flaky though. The demonstration cheated a bit by using a vanilla VMWare config; an actual PC would be loaded with crappy vendor drivers and startup software which complicated any upgrade.