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[Jim Leonard]

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> My own experience stretches back a bit further (I have socks that are older
> than you) and today's hardware is nothing short of miraculous in terms of
> cost and reliability.  

I can see where the guy is coming from, though.  Modern hardware is very 
reliable, but the software is just terrible.  Drivers in particular.  I 
have a 3D program that displays perfectly on one machine, and resets the 
display every time you render on another.  I have a Linux box that keeps 
forgetting what it's IP address is, DHCP or not, and the catalyst for 
that behavior was a new router (!?).  It's crazy.

One of my favorite hobbyist experiences was working on my 386/40 -- I 
had a finely-tuned DOS setup, had QEMM to manage the memory, and 
everything was properly aligned and non-conflicting in terms of IRQ and 
DMA assignments.  It Just Worked(tm).
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/