"Progress" and "Obsolescence"
This is a bit off track, but is related to CAD.....
In 1986 I finally relented and swapped my Epson CPM office computer for a DOS machine. I bought a state-of-the-art Wyse Technology PC286, running at (a then amazing) 12 MHz. A year or so later I replaced its original 20 MB hard drive with a 30 MB --- just to get a little more space.
This computer was used almost entirely for Versacad (I had the old CPM machine for word processing) and was so-used until a few years ago when I bought a Pentium for use with windows and the internet, and transfered my CAD stuff to a used 486 I bought cheap. The 286 was dumped on a trash pile in my garage. The 486 was faster of course, but I missed some elements of the Wyse 286 --- like it's keyboard, the best I ever used, but unfortunately non-compatible.
A few months ago the 486 fried itself into an irreparable mess just a day or two before the Pentium was infected by a major virus. I bought a new pentium for Windows/Internet, and had the old Pentium converted into a DOS-only machine so I could use that for VersaCAD.
I should explain about VersaCAD: It was the first PC-based CAD software. Innitially written for CPM, and then redone for DOS. It was bought out by Prime Computer in the early 90's in an ill-conceived plot to talk the VersaCAD user base up to their far more expensive ComputerVision CAD software. That didn't work so they just closed VersaCAD down --- wiping out the best PC-based CAD software ever conceived. Although my copies still work fine, the software (thankfully) had never progressed to the point of being windows-compatible.
But my older Pentium absolutely refused to run VersaCAD. A compatibility thing, I suppose. What to do? After a couple of months of trying to put up with AutoCAD (the latest version of which is STILL inferior to the ten-year-old VersaCAD) I decided to see if the old 286 would still work. I dug it out of a junk pile in my garage, vacuumed out the spider webs and sawdust, cleaned off some grease that had spilled on it, plugged it in, and it works perfectly! This thing is sixteen years old, has a 14-year old hard drive, and spent several years in a pile of junk in my garage. And it still works perfectly! I've decided that I can adapt down to the slower processing speed of the 286, and count all the other blessings this machine provides.
I wonder how many more years it'll run.....
Bill S