> When people make comparisons to clunky Model T cars in the 20’s and Win95, they aren’t far off.
I think they are. Model T’s were clunky because they were minimalistic; Windows 95 was clunky because it tried to do impossible things.
This is a fine example. In the Windows 95 architecture, it’s impossible to detect whether a program is an installer, but they tried anyways.
Another example is Plug and Play. The original IBM PC parallel ports were designed for printers. That interface got extended (a few times. See https://computer.rip/2023-01-29-the-parallel-port.html) and reused to support tape drives, CD-ROM drives, scanners and whatever. Plug and play was intended to detect these devices, but with the original port about anything you sent on it to a printer resulted in characters being printed.
Also, there was no way for a printer to tell the PC it was a printer. All it could indicate were a few bits to signal they could receive data, were out of paper, etc.
So, how do you figure out what, if anything, is connected to a parallel port?
The answer is “very carefully”, and I don’t think it ever worked flawlessly. I definitely remember a tape drive that, whenever Windows started, flashed a few LEDs and got in a weird state that required some manual intervention.
I think I understand your point. But I could argue that a Model T was trying to do an impossible thing too. Like, contain a gasoline explosion to reliably create forward thrust in an affordable design. And make them quickly and reasonably safely. That was “impossible” before.
So I guess the lesson here is any first technology that is trying to do the impossible will be clunky. Fortunately there was a lot of car competition so we got much better cars. Assuming you exclude that industry’s successful lobbying to bend US society into car culture.
After thinking about this I think my analogy was correct but for a spectrum of different reasons.
I think they are. Model T’s were clunky because they were minimalistic; Windows 95 was clunky because it tried to do impossible things.
This is a fine example. In the Windows 95 architecture, it’s impossible to detect whether a program is an installer, but they tried anyways.
Another example is Plug and Play. The original IBM PC parallel ports were designed for printers. That interface got extended (a few times. See https://computer.rip/2023-01-29-the-parallel-port.html) and reused to support tape drives, CD-ROM drives, scanners and whatever. Plug and play was intended to detect these devices, but with the original port about anything you sent on it to a printer resulted in characters being printed.
Also, there was no way for a printer to tell the PC it was a printer. All it could indicate were a few bits to signal they could receive data, were out of paper, etc.
So, how do you figure out what, if anything, is connected to a parallel port?
The answer is “very carefully”, and I don’t think it ever worked flawlessly. I definitely remember a tape drive that, whenever Windows started, flashed a few LEDs and got in a weird state that required some manual intervention.