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Security Updates?
Seriously, though, the advances from Windows 95 to Vista are less about improving the "tool" and more about improving the experience of using the computer. I don't think you can really call a computer a "tool" anymore, anyway. It is the communication, entertainment, and productivity center of many people's lives. It serves far more value than a hammer or a pen. It has the ability to morph into practically anything. Back in 1995, when the real value of a computer was still somewhat ambiguous, people called them tools because that was the closest metaphor to a a familiar paradigm. Today, the computer is the paradigm.
The argument this guy uses is kind of stupid and reminds me of the short-sighted, extremely stubborn attitude of the most geeky people I know. He doesn't like Internet Explorer 4, so he refuses to use an operating system based on IE. While IE 4 was a terrible internet browser, it served Windows pretty well; using the idea of back and forward buttons for browsing files/folders is still used today in Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Sure, Windows 98 sucked at it, but that's exactly what Windows XP improved on. (Arguably, Windows Vista improved on this as well.) That's why people upgraded.
In the end, by using Windows 95, he is just torturing himself. He might gain pleasure from the novelty of writing stories like this one and getting strange reactions from people, but in the end, his experience of using his computer is just... terrible.
It seems to me that this is an extreme case of the above situation. This guy has something that works for him. I would say works well, but until you've used something for a while and understand how it enhances your productivity, you really don't see the error of your old ways.
Some are asking why he doesn't install Linux. My thought is that if one of your decisions when choosing an OS is maintaining compatibility with your DOS games, you're probably not an ideal candidate for linux. Note that it doesn't matter if you Can play DOS games on linux; it's just a completely different mindset.
I assume he also drives a model T, writes with a fountain pen, and uses a cell phone from 1995 as well? Seriously, though, the advances from Windows 95 to Vista are less about improving the "tool" and more about improving the experience of using the computer. I don't think you can really call a computer a "tool" anymore, anyway. It is the communication, entertainment, and productivity center of many people's lives. I…
I wonder why he doesn't use Linux, seems he could build whatever he needs and forget the bloatware of windows. Specially with a distribution like Gentoo he could build a custom system and not have to have the technology drawbacks of Windows 95.
I assume he also drives a model T, writes with a fountain pen, and uses a cell phone from 1995 as well? Seriously, though, the advances from Windows 95 to Vista are less about improving the "tool" and more about improving the experience of using the computer. I don't think you can really call a computer a "tool" anymore, anyway. It is the communication, entertainment, and productivity center of many people's lives. I…
There are still people who swear to a fountain pen. Not all old tech is useless.
Assuming he is using it, how exactly is he running Firefox 3 (he has an entry about it's release on his blog) on Win95? I haven't tried it but the OS isn't showing a message and then denies the possibility to install FF3? And what kind of productivity do you get with, let's say, 6 or 7 year's old software? I wonder, really, what kind of development/usage is he attributing to that machine.
Assuming he is using it, how exactly is he running Firefox 3 (he has an entry about it's release on his blog) on Win95? I haven't tried it but the OS isn't showing a message and then denies the possibility to install FF3? And what kind of productivity do you get with, let's say, 6 or 7 year's old software? I wonder, really, what kind of development/usage is he attributing to that machine.
I wonder why he doesn't use Linux, seems he could build whatever he needs and forget the bloatware of windows. Specially with a distribution like Gentoo he could build a custom system and not have to have the technology drawbacks of Windows 95.
Because X is client-server based, it actually performs much worse than Windows 95. That might be one of the issues he would have with using Linux. It's very high performance as a server platform, but it does a little worse as a consumer OS.
Anyway, I doubt any overhead of the X protocol is visible on a modern machine. With two cores, the client and server can both run at the same time, and server operations are so fast you wouldn't notice anyway. I certainly don't notice any delay, although I do see that X has used 495 minutes of CPU time on my machine (in 9 days). (Compare that to 285 minutes of CPU time that emacs has used, and 137 that Firefox has used.)