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

71–80 of 120 posts

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#71

Post by yuhong »

chrismorgan wrote: post #53

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 us…

The IE6 SP1 installer is still available from MS:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=1

Of course do be warned that you are using unsupported software that had not received security updates since July 2010.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#74

Post by warfangle »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #67
to3m wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

GUI-based system still needs command shell or it will lose a lot of flexibility arising from being able to evaluate small bits of code and therefore code incrementally. "Immediate mode" counts.

Command shell, GUI, it's all software. If you have an x86 machine without an operating system on it, is it a computer?

Is an iOS device not a computer because it doesn't have a CLI?

What about a hypothetical computer that uses your brain as input - would that have a CLI? CLI/GUI/etc is irrelevant to the definition of computer.

Unless you're just being a pedantic troll, in which case kudos :)

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#75

Post by futhey »

ibrahima wrote: post #59
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.

I feel like this is a more sufficient explanation than the one provided by the author. The front-end people at wikipedia probably remember the hoops they jumped through to work within IE5's quirks, and developed best practices that still happen to work out in that context.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#76

Post by akandiah »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #66
com2kid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

Well, not any. For example, still no built-in decent package manager able to download and install software along with dependencies.

I believe he/she was being sarcastic there :)

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#77

Post by magic_haze »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #57
mhurron wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Agreed, but... the standards themselves have changed since 1999.

Re: Popular Websites Displayed in IE 5

#80

Post by scottrblock »

stfu wrote: post #23
sharkweek wrote: post #19

I bet Hacker News would look fantastic in IE5, tables and all

And rightfully so! I would love to see more websites offering a no-frills version for older browsers, mobile browsers, smaller screens, etc. Once I know that a site provides a specific value to me I really don't care about design and usability anymore.

That seems to be the goal of the Universal ie6 [0] project, albiet for ie6!

[0]- https://code.google.com/p/universal-ie6-css/

Post reply on HN