Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#2Now they tear out features to break Sim City. https://answers.ea.com/t5/Other-SimCity-Games/SimCity-4-Wind...
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#3It's interesting that the games media has treated this as some totally unknown fact on an obscure blog, when it feels like it even qualifies as common knowledge among HN (and obviously painting joel as some random ex-microsoft developer who just happens to have a blog is similar)
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#4> Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn’t free memory right away. That’s the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95.
Impressive; now, if only we could trick them into considering "privacy" a core feature and add "backward compatibility" for it in newest Windows releases, we'd be golden.
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#5Now they tear out features to break Sim City. https://answers.ea.com/t5/Other-SimCity-Games/SimCity-4-Wind...
This is more like eliminating outdated unsafe DRM.
As a commenter over there suggested, you could always use "a modified executable from the Internet".
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#6Now they tear out features to break Sim City. https://answers.ea.com/t5/Other-SimCity-Games/SimCity-4-Wind...
This is more like eliminating outdated unsafe DRM. As a commenter over there suggested, you could always use "a modified executable from the Internet".
The purpose of DRM is not security although it can be sold like that.
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#7Now they tear out features to break Sim City. https://answers.ea.com/t5/Other-SimCity-Games/SimCity-4-Wind...
This is more like eliminating outdated unsafe DRM. As a commenter over there suggested, you could always use "a modified executable from the Internet".
Sounds more like they wanted more redudent digital PC game purchases for older titles.
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#8It's interesting that the games media has treated this as some totally unknown fact on an obscure blog, when it feels like it even qualifies as common knowledge among HN (and obviously painting joel as some random ex-microsoft developer who just happens to have a blog is similar)
I've been a daily user of HN for near a decade and this is news to me
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#9It's interesting that the games media has treated this as some totally unknown fact on an obscure blog, when it feels like it even qualifies as common knowledge among HN (and obviously painting joel as some random ex-microsoft developer who just happens to have a blog is similar)
I've been a daily user of HN for near a decade and this is news to me
Oh man, I wish I had links to some article about how much effort some MS engineer went to to get old versions of things like Quicken working. It was a good read, you'd like it, if someone else knows the one and can link.
Re: Windows 95 had dedicated code to run Sim City
#10> Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn’t free memory right away. That’s the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95. Impressive; now, if only we could trick them into considering "privacy" a core feature and add "backward…
Why is this “impressive”. Microsoft made money by selling Windows. If Windows got the reputation for being incompatible with popular software, people wouldn’t have bought Windows