Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

cross-browser.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 120 posts

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#51

Post by warfangle »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #35
smoyer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you still have a "command prompt" so that you can run your DOS programs as well as "compatibility mode" so that older applications can run on the post-XP systems.

"Command prompt", i.e. terminal, is what makes you toy a computer. If you don't have one, it's still a toy. MS did a lot to turn their lame "DOS command prompt" into a command line terminal; not enough, but a lot. So no, "command prompt" has nothing to do with DOS. You can run DOS programs from the GUI as well.

Just because the computer in my microwave doesn't have a GUI or a CLI doesn't mean it isn't a computer.

The first computers dealt with input via switches and levers. I don't think anyone would call the Colossus[0] a toy, and it had nothing resembling the command prompt that we know today.

0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#52

Post by guard-of-terra »

warfangle wrote: post #51
guard-of-terra wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Command prompt", i.e. terminal, is what makes you toy a computer. If you don't have one, it's still a toy. MS did a lot to turn their lame "DOS command prompt" into a command line terminal; not enough, but a lot. So no, "command prompt" has nothing to do with DOS. You can run DOS programs from the GUI as well.

Just because the computer in my microwave doesn't have a GUI or a CLI doesn't mean it isn't a computer. The first computers dealt with input via switches and levers. I don't think anyone would call the Colossus[0] a toy, and it had nothing resembling the command prompt that we know today. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

Your computer in microwave is not a computer. You can't run custom programs on it, it's not turing complete for you in this sense.

To run custom programs on it, you'll need to add a terminal to it or succumb to the sin of batch processing.

Colossus wasn't actually turing complete. It wasn't a computer except in historic sense.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#53

Post by chrismorgan »

The sad thing is that I was actually needing to use IE5 in February. A Windows 2000 Server machine in India which had been unused for a few years but was being pressed back into service. And Windows Update seemed to need IE6 to be able to install IE6. With a separately-sourced IE6 installer, I did finally get it up to IE6, but I couldn't manage to get it up to IE6 SP1 even then.

IE5 was certainly rather painful to use. Google did not work correctly under it. Microsoft's sites were just about the most painful to browse.

Owing to some malware on the system hijacking some DNS things and some further DNS misconfiguration I couldn't even get Firefox for a while... but I did eventually restore order to the machine and get Firefox 10 ESR installed on it. (The latest supported version to work on Windows 2000.)

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#54

Post by com2kid »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #35
smoyer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you still have a "command prompt" so that you can run your DOS programs as well as "compatibility mode" so that older applications can run on the post-XP systems.

"Command prompt", i.e. terminal, is what makes you toy a computer. If you don't have one, it's still a toy. MS did a lot to turn their lame "DOS command prompt" into a command line terminal; not enough, but a lot. So no, "command prompt" has nothing to do with DOS. You can run DOS programs from the GUI as well.

> MS did a lot to turn their lame "DOS command prompt" into a command line terminal; not enough, but a lot.

Then they made PowerShell, which removes any complaints one might have!

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#55

Post by to3m »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #52
warfangle wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the computer in my microwave doesn't have a GUI or a CLI doesn't mean it isn't a computer. The first computers dealt with input via switches and levers. I don't think anyone would call the Colossus[0] a toy, and it had nothing resembling the command prompt that we know today. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

Your computer in microwave is not a computer. You can't run custom programs on it, it's not turing complete for you in this sense. To run custom programs on it, you'll need to add a terminal to it or succumb to the sin of batch processing. Colossus wasn't actually turing complete. It wasn't a computer except in historic sense.

You can use a GUI-based programming system. An example might be Devpac (68000 assembly language editor/assembler/debugger) on the Atari ST.

(You could get command shells for the ST, because it was a programmable computer, so of course you could make it do pretty much whatever you wanted if you were willing to put the effort in. But the system didn't ship with a command line interface and (as I recall...) most of the programming environments - at least the ones popular in Europe - didn't include one either.)

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#56

Post by markdown »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #35
smoyer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you still have a "command prompt" so that you can run your DOS programs as well as "compatibility mode" so that older applications can run on the post-XP systems.

"Command prompt", i.e. terminal, is what makes you toy a computer. If you don't have one, it's still a toy. MS did a lot to turn their lame "DOS command prompt" into a command line terminal; not enough, but a lot. So no, "command prompt" has nothing to do with DOS. You can run DOS programs from the GUI as well.

Wow, you must be some sort of L33T H4X0r or something. You're the real deal. Everyone else is just playing with toys.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#57

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

mhurron wrote: post #42
smoyer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well ... I do agree that both the standards and best-practices for creating web content have changed, but I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s. You could argue they have complete control of both the software and the document format in that instance, but the IE browsers never bothered to be standards compliant anyway ("older IE browsers" - I've been pleasantly sur…

> I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s. Backwards compatibility is not the same as forwards compatibility, you seem to be confusing them. You expect an application like Excel to open something made before by an earlier version. MS knows how to handle that format. However, you do not expect Excel 95 to open a xlsx file, it was a format that did not exist when Exce…

I think that you are confusing backwards/forwards compatibility with the point the OP seemed to be making: Microsoft never bothered to follow the web standards.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#58

Post by andyroid »

yuhong wrote: post #44
atesti wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Microsoft has disabled or removed quite some import filters. e.g. you can't open a PowerPoint 4 file anywhere anymore. They also disabled Works and Word Perfect filters. Probably a victim of the secure coding guidelines: Might have bugs ==> remove feature

It is because of security issues with old code that probably mostly dates back to Office 97 or older. How often do you receive Word 6.0 documents via email nowadays?

How one receieves such documents is irrelevant. Some years ago a relative passed away, leaving hundreds of such documents on her antique computer. Luckily there was free software available that would still allow us to take part of her legacy. But of course, we could just as well have burnt her computer to ashes, as something so ancient must obviously be a security issue.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#59

Post by ibrahima »

ultimoo wrote: post #25

I like how wikipedia presents its contents in a usable way on IE5. This is awesome and most likely a part of their mission to make knowledge as accessible as possible . I have seen old, low-end donated PCs that are rife in elementary education in rural India and I'm sure in other developing countries as well. I am sure that these machines will be able to render wikipedia just fine!

I think it's more likely that they simply haven't felt the need to update their styling much in the past decade or so. And last I checked the home page uses tables for layout, so it would make sense that it works on IE5, since that's what everyone did back then.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#60

Post by pasquinelli »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #52
warfangle wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the computer in my microwave doesn't have a GUI or a CLI doesn't mean it isn't a computer. The first computers dealt with input via switches and levers. I don't think anyone would call the Colossus[0] a toy, and it had nothing resembling the command prompt that we know today. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

Your computer in microwave is not a computer. You can't run custom programs on it, it's not turing complete for you in this sense. To run custom programs on it, you'll need to add a terminal to it or succumb to the sin of batch processing. Colossus wasn't actually turing complete. It wasn't a computer except in historic sense.

Your computer in microwave is not a computer.
Post reply on HN