Top 5 Submerging Technologies Pinpointed 475
An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld makes its picks of five 'submerging' (i.e. dying) technologies, as the article asks 'Where are the review committees for obsolete technologies?' The picks, made by 'corporate IT managers and analysts', include Windows 9x, client/server computing and Visual Basic 6."
Submission - it's dragging me down (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Submission - it's dragging me down (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Submission - it's dragging me down (Score:4, Informative)
if you want funding now you have to be:
client server isn't dying - the server has become "enterprise" and the client has becom "personal"
Re:Submission - it's dragging me down (Score:2)
That's especially funny since "enterprise" was originally supposed to mean (best as I could tell; nobody's really sure what it means) n-tier. But, all the PHB's out there want to think they're big and important too and don't like hearing that they don't need "enterprise-level solutions" (even when those save them money -- I've had a COO of an organization with 5 servers and 60 desktops all in one central site say "well obviously our organization needs an enterprise-level solution [for Directory Access]; cli
Re:Submission - it's dragging me down (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say the opposite - everyone's going back to the server because it's a complete 'mare to configure thousands of clients to do the same thing (users keep mucking it up)... the new stuff just uses the client as a souped up web browser.
Interface vs. Implementation (Score:2)
But as I was saying, the end-user sees themselves talking to a single server. www.something.com/someapp/... Nothin
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
that website is one... (Score:2)
someone want to post the article here?
Speaking of dying technologies.. (Score:5, Funny)
Concorde (Score:2)
Re:Concorde /. (Score:2)
Article Text (Score:4, Informative)
These technologies are rapidly taking on water. Is it time to jump ship?
Story by Gary H. Anthes and Robert L. Mitchell
OCTOBER 20, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - Most corporate IT organizations have steering committees to craft strategies for new technologies, chief technology officers to assess new products, and IT policies and procedures for developing and buying new hardware and software.
But where are the review committees for obsolete technologies? Who's looking at what's in the data center, on desktops and in briefcases to see if they still make sense? Who's checking to see if spare parts, vendor support and employees with the right skills will be available next month--or next year?
In most companies, no one is doing those things in any rigorous way, says John Parkinson, chief technologist for the Americas region at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Chicago. "I know of very few companies that actively manage sunsetting their IT," he says. "They think it will last forever."
It doesn't, of course. But in most cases, there's no need to rush: "No tool is really outdated if it serves the needs of end users," says Eric Goldfarb, CIO at PRG-Schultz International Inc. in Atlanta. However, IT managers who wait too long may risk being forced into expensive last-minute changes to accommodate new technology initiatives as business needs change. That IP telephony call center application won't fly if you have to replace not only the private branch exchange but also update network cabling and those nonswitched, shared-media Ethernet hubs.
Parkinson says that for each type of software and hardware installed, companies should have an estimated cost and date to replace it and an estimated cost to retain it. "You really should have this in the plan when you [buy], otherwise you won't know what ROI to expect," he says.
Of course, some technologies need closer scrutiny than others. So Computerworld asked corporate IT managers and analysts what items they would put at the top of their lists. Some of them may justify an immediate rip-and-replace strategy; others should be put on your "endangered" list. Here are five submerging technologies to watch in 2004:
1. WINDOWS 9x
Why it's sinking: Can 92 million users be wrong? Yes. Declining support, reliability problems, security issues and incompatibility with new applications should drive the remaining installed base to Windows 2000 or XP.
Credit: Red Nose Studio
No obsolete technology is in wider use than the 9x versions of Microsoft Corp.'s operating system. "Windows 9x is getting to be pretty much unsustainable," says Tony Iams, an analyst at D.H. Brown Associates Inc. in Port Chester, N.Y. Indeed, many companies have already migrated to Windows 2000 Professional to gain the reliability of an operating system built on the more stable NT kernel.
But eradicating Windows 9x won't come easy: IDC in Framingham, Mass., estimates that by year's end, there will still be 17 million Windows 95 installations, 48 million Windows 98 users and 27 million machines still running Windows Me. And the majority of those are business PCs, claims IDC analyst Dan Kuznetsky. "In the long term, it will probably be less costly to upgrade [to Windows XP], just because the NT kernel is much more reliable," he says.
But what if your organization has waited? Should you go directly to XP, wait for the next generation (code-named Longhorn) or choose something else?
Don't hold your breath for Longhorn: It isn't due to arrive until 2005 at the earliest. Linux is a widely touted option, but for many the idea of replacing thousands of Windows installations, training users on a new operating system and getting it to work with existing Windows applications is a nonstarter.
Tom Pratt, information systems manager at Coastal Transportation Inc. in Seattle, says he has no plans to abandon Windows 98. The applications running on his boats won't run on anything else,
You forgot the chart (Score:4, Informative)
Legend---
Out - O:
In - I:
Why - Y:
----
O: 900-MHz wireless LANs
I: 802.11 WLANs
Y:Early WLANs installed in warehouses and manufacturing floors won't work with 802.11b. Integration requires an upgrade.
O:1U (1.75-in. high) servers
I:Blade servers
Y:They save space, eliminate cables and lower costs by sharing power supplies and connectivity.
O:Color ink-jet printers
I:Color laser printers
Y:Color laser printers used to cost thousands; now they're well under $1,000. And color laser cartridge changes are less frequent--and less messy.
O:CRT monitors
I:LCD monitors
Y:Flicker-free LCDs reduce eyestrain; the tubeless design saves on desk space, and the LCDs are less environmentally hazardous at disposal time than CRTs.
O:Dot-matrix printers
I:Ink-jet/laser printers
Y:Dot-matrix printers are still good for multipart forms, but as volumes have fallen, prices have jumped above those of both ink-jet and low-end laser printers.
O:Ethernet hubs
I:Intelligent switches
Y:Newer switches are inexpensive, a prerequisite for IP telephony, and typically support Simple Network Management Protocol for remote manageability.
O:File servers
I:Network-attached storage appliances
Y:Why maintain file servers for shared storage when you can plug in a simple appliance?
O:Floppy disks
I:Flash disks, writable CDs, DVDs
Y:What fits on 1.44MB of disk space anymore?
O:Mac OS 9
I:Mac OS X
Y:Increased stability makes this upgrade a no-brainer.
O:Modems
I:Wireless LANs
Y:With WLANs expanding across offices, public spaces and hotels, the modem, with its 56Kbit/sec. speed limit, is fast becoming the computing equivalent of an automobile's limited-service spare tire--used only in emergencies, at low speeds.
O:PBXs
I:IP telephony/call manager servers
Y:With applications that require an integrated voice/data network already emerging, another long-term investment in a digital PBX at this point probably doesn't make sense.
O:PDAs
I:Cell phone/PDA hybrids
Y:Free up your pockets! New hybrid models are finally reaching a size and price where a single, integrated device makes sense.
O:Serial/parallel ports
I:USB 2.0 ports
Y:The ports won't go away on PCs anytime soon, but for new hardware, Universal Serial Bus peripherals are faster and often easier to set up.
O:Token Ring
I:Ethernet
Y:Ethernet: Cheap and ubiquitous. Token Ring: Expensive, with limited vendor sources. Any questions?
O:Windows NT servers
I:Windows 2000, Server 2003
Y:Support will disappear soon--as will all those security patches and updates.
O:Zip drives
I:Rewritable CD/DVD drives
Y:CD-ROM drives are inexpensive and ubiquitous, and the media are cheaper.
Re:You forgot the chart (Score:2)
We need the Swiss Army Phone/PDA!
Obviously would also need a bottle opener and corkscrew...
Davak
Re:You forgot the chart (Score:2)
Nobody is getting moderation points anyway. [slashdot.org]
Everybody can down mod this to hell to balance out my karma if you wish.
Re:You forgot the chart (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Article Text (Score:2)
And with games such things are expected but corperations are notoriously slow to move to new tech especially with something as high cost as an OS.
And programmers a lot of them at least especially ones that maintain a set of applications are slow to migrate, I wrote a tool for a company I worked for in vb6 and maintained it in that, problem is I hit some limits of what vb6 cou
Re:Article Text (Score:3, Insightful)
VB6 and VB.NET are -very- different things. Calling them the same language is almost absurd; not only was the syntax radically altered, but VB.NET should really be using a completely different set of libraries (the
Re:Article Text (Score:4, Insightful)
Um... duh?
Isn't a Web service still based on a client/server architecture? Aren't n-tier systems just an extrapolation of the client/server model?
The same stuff's still out there and going strong, they're just using different buzzwords to describe it.
As Of October 16... (Score:4, Funny)
Revealing headline (Score:2)
The other two are Tape Backups and SNA Servers, just in case you wanted the surprise completely ruined for you.
Re:Revealing headline (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no backup solutions for good money - even DVD-R has only a 4.7GB capacity - I'd need to burn 3 a night (and it's enough hassle changing the tape every day, never mind swapping CDs).
At work we backup only a small part (~1%) of the network - the cost to buy backup for more than that would have blown the entire
client/server? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah...whatever.
Because the internet (www especially) would work FINE if it was all p2p.
Re:client/server? (Score:2)
But the only people who use p2p are Evil Content Pirates(tm)!!!! Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti told me so!
Re:client/server? (Score:2)
Re:client/server? (Score:2)
n-tier architectures are basically n-client/server layers. Can someone say "buzz".
Re:client/server? (Score:3, Informative)
*FAT* client/server, whats also referred to as "2-Tier Intelligent Client" application architecture model is becoming outdated.
An application is composed of three layers:
- Application
- Business
- Data
You have three basic architectual models:
- 2-tier Intelligent Server
- 2-tier Intelligenc Client
- N-Tier
In the intelligent server model, most of the processing is done on the server, and in an intelligent client model, most processing is done o
Re:client/server? (Score:2)
He is pushing for NLayer. Where you have a think client on the desktop like a Web browser, a logic server like j2ee and then a database layer. I can see that for some large systems nlayer would work better than client server but I find client/server to have it's place.
A P2P web could work. A dynamic scalable World Wide Web could be intersting. The trick would be how do you route the client to the right server? It might be interesting to see how
Re:client/server? (Score:2, Insightful)
As they say client server architecture is being replaced by ummm client server architecture.
oh and ink jets are both out and in. This is world class reporting if I have ever seen it
Re:client/server? (Score:2)
Psst. TCP/IP is a p2p design. Connections between nodes require no brokering by third parties, merely routing of packets. The protocol is symmetric regardless of who initiates the connection (accept() merely contacts the port of the originating peer and starts the server end of the handshake).
Web apps are not the classic client-server design. The "thin" client of a web app is orthogonal to the server, being a general purpose
Re:client/server? (Score:2)
the web is not client/server by that definition.
Article behind the times somewhat... (Score:2)
And it's just now dying?
Re:Article behind the times somewhat... (Score:2)
Re:Article behind the times somewhat... (Score:3, Informative)
That's what I thought until I worked for a big company.
I did an inventory of how many printers we still have on Token Ring last week, and the count was about 1200 (versus about 3000 ethernet).
We just finished phasing out TR for our corporate buildings a year and a half ago.
Re:Article behind the times somewhat... (Score:2)
We had to get specific cards, because the 2.0.12 kernel only had support for a single IBM card.... It worked though.
Re:Article behind the times somewhat... (Score:2)
So how long ago was 2.0.12 considered current? And guess what, token ring cards still cost about $150 (and up). Good riddance!
Re:Article behind the times somewhat... (Score:2)
Dot Matrix - P.O.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
yea, I suppose you are right, if every point of sale system on the planet is considered a "small segment of the business community". Think about it the next time you are at a restaurant and they hand you the multi-copy bill to sign or any other time you use a credit card. Think about it the next time you take your car to the repair shop and they print up the work order and then later the bill. Does your paycheck get direct deposited? If not it
Re:Article behind the times somewhat... (Score:2)
A few corrections here: for something to be "infinitesimally dim" would actually mean that it was dim by such a VERY SMALL fraction that it would not be "dim" at all. Second, a dilettante is a dabbler, so this statement is redundant to the extreme. If you are going to post a boring troll, at least strive for accuracy.
VB6??? (Score:2)
Re:VB6??? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:VB6??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:VB6??? (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem with the article is the barely concealed sales p
Client/server not dying. (Score:2)
I'd argue we'll see even more of this when Microsoft's .NET initiative takes hold. Their plans will make it very easy for businesses to run supercomputers and lease time out to other businesses or even hom
Tape Gone? (Score:3, Interesting)
To archive, what last longer... tape or a hard drive?
I think the majority of people in the business are using hard drives as back up devices now... so tape may very well be out. We know CDRs die sooner than expected... do hard drives sitting on a shelf store better?
Of course, I am paranoid. I still hard drive to hard drive backup and download my database from work to home weekly.
I still wonder if tape is better for archiving though.
Davak
Re:Tape Gone? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as shelf-life goes, that's a good question. will a tape sitting on a shelf fare better than a hard drive after 10 years? I don' t know.
Re:Tape Gone? (Score:2)
Tape is hardly dying. Especially since, as the article states, "alternatives just aren't well-known yet."
To the best of my awareness, most large enterprises have some kind of massive tape backup system for disaster recovery. Replacing that kind of infrastructure is tricky and worrisome -- any problems in the system can have horrible consequences.
If you're a big bank or insurance company, your disaster recovery plan is probably the last place you want to replace old technology with new for archiving da
Re:Tape Gone? (Score:2)
Re:Tape Gone? (Score:2)
We're considering moving to DVD-R for obvious reasons.
Color laser printers (Score:2)
Almost everyone I know has bought a color inkjet printer (even if they didn't really want it: "it came free with a 4-pack of nine volt batteries"). Can anyone report on *home* use of a color laser printer?
computerworlds webserver.. (Score:2)
Tape backup dying? Ha. (Score:2)
Way off. (Score:2)
Windows 95 will of course die but, it's stiil a few years away.
VB6 will take even longer to be replaced that Windows 9X. Also, is it really being replaced? VB
Client server isn't going to die, the client is changing that's all. Old app specific clients are being replaced by browsers but it will remain a client server architecture.
Tape Backup - Step away from the crack pipe dude. Tape backup is going now where in
Doing away with Tape? (Score:2)
Re:Doing away with Tape? (Score:2)
If you think it would be tough to do this with hard drives, just wait until you are backing up and shipping out a terrabyte or more per day. In real networks where business continuity is important, tapes will always be there.
VB6 (Score:2)
The only thing that keeps me sane while using it is the sight of that Cobol book on the shelf
How could they forget? (Score:2)
Just the name alone should qualify it as a winner..
You want submerging? Right here.... (Score:2)
Tech jobs in general are disappearing or at least still in a funk. Maybe getting into IT was not that great of a career choice after all...
Re:You want submerging? Right here.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh HELL no (Score:2)
People that think "Hey, it works just fine!" - nevermind the fact that it's a gaping security hole just begging to be exploited.
Backups (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh. Let me tell you why tapes are good. Tapes are very, very simple and well understood. You can repair a broken tape with a Stanley knife and Sellotape if you have to. Sure you might lose a few blocks, but with decent archiving tools (like cpio and bzip2) losing a file won't cost you the entire archive. If a tape drive fails, just replace it, easy.
Now, when a hard drive fails, what're you going to do? Repair the platter? Transplant it to another hard drive? Just not feasible. And how're you going to store archives? Tapes are cheap and high density. Maybe you've moved buildings a couple of times and they've been kicked around, how certain are you HDs can be plugged back in and run? And they take more physical space too, and still cost more.
Tapes aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Re:Backups (Score:2)
I never had a good time with tapes.
If a tape drive fails, just replace it, easy.
Easy and expensive.
Now, when a hard drive fails, what're you going to do?
Pull the drive, drop it in, and let the RAID stuff do it's stuff (and stuff
Re:Backups (Score:3, Insightful)
They're sensitive to their storage environment, they stretch, they need to be rewound, they are sequential (SLOW, SLOW, SLOW!)
Already, for home users and small businesses, tapes are more expensive than hard drives. Soon, that will be the case for large businesses, too.
Re:Backups (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, a co-worker where I used to work did exactly that!
I believe he was upgrading some part of his PC and got the power connected backwards (loose socket on the drive perhaps). Or maybe something else caused it, but whatever it was the electronics on the drive were ruined, he didn't have a backup and the data on the drive was quite important.
So he went and purchased another drive, and actually ended up buying 2 or 3 drives that claimed to the same model. Lucky for him the drive wasn't that old, and despite there being a couple different versions of the drive with the same model number but different electronics, he got one that had the same board.
He desoldered the circuit boards from both drives and installed the electronics from the good one into the dead one. It actually worked. He managed to boot the computer up and copy all his files to one of the servers on the network. He then threw both drives away and installed one of the drives with the different circuit board, reinstall the OS and other stuff and copied his data back from the server.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Zip drives... (Score:2)
While I was waiting for aftermarket ZIP disks to come down in price like floppies, cheap, fast and reliable, CDR/W happened.
Now that I have 8cm cdr's and CF, I don't need any other removable media at all.
I even bought laptops without floppy drives finally.
Re:Zip drives... (Score:2)
Re:Zip drives... (Score:3, Funny)
First, they're already in Hell - or Utah, at least (which, for our purposes, we will assume similar).
Second, you do know that SCO is located in Utah, don't you? And so, what can we derive from these two facts?
It is clear that Utah-based companies have extreme trouble finding qualified people to run their organizations, seeing that Utah is an equivalent to Hell. As such, anyone who invests in a company that is headquartere
Other Submerging Technologies (Score:2)
The list is long, the night is short. Run, lemmings, run!
Rb
Same joke, only funnier (Score:2)
Kyle:Yeah...[concerned] You know, it seems like something's still not right. [camera pans to BSD]
Cartman:Yeah, something feels...unfinished [drum roll]
Stan:Wh-what could it be? [the drum roll heads for a climax]
THE END
BSD:(Yee he hee!) [end credits roll]
Preview of Future Sunsets (Score:2)
Other boats cruising with a lot of ballast:
Transparent attempt to generate revenue (Score:2)
Client server computing dead? (Score:3, Funny)
Client/Server applications are not dying (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for a company that builds business software. We have big projects building N-tier apps with "rich clients" on both
More like "Where are they now" technologies (Score:2)
It's like the 80s all over again!!!
(By the way, a recent Slashdot survey confirms: Windows is dying.)
Few more "predictions" right here... (Score:2)
Black and White TVs: A lot of these beasts are still out there but they'll gradually continue to be replaced by color TVs. HDTVs you ask? Don't hold your breath - they are still too pricey and will be for few more years. You are better off going with a regular color TV for now - HDTV is a nonstarter.
Cars from the 80s and early 90s: You may not believe it but t
WAP (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone remember when it was going to be the next great thing - it'll revolutionise the world, we'll tak the internet with us on our phones and PDA's! Wow!
Hmm, someone didn't think that one out too well.
WAP is dying as fast as it appeared.
Why I'm Not Switching Yet (Score:4, Interesting)
- Win9x: For most of our hardware, nothing else makes sense. Our budget (small biz -- 20 employees) doesn't let us upgrade that often. Personally, I run Windows only when I absolutely have to, and I certainly am NOT going to run it on the latest hardware. Hence, Win9x.
- Client/Server: You know what? It's not dead, especially for smaller installs. Sure, IBM and other greats can't justify having an app that has to be installed on every darn workstation or has to have heavier clients (I dislike 'fat', it implies bloat.) We don't cater to 300 workstations, we cater to 4 or 5. C/S is still the way for us and will be for ages.
- Tape Backup: Because you'll never convince the PHB that hard drives are just as reliable. Mind you, when the boss buys Maxtor POS drives, what do you expect?
- 1U (1.75-in. high) servers: What in hades do I need a blade for? We add services once, maybe twice a year. We have all of 10 things in the rack...maybe. 1Us are still important for us.
- Color inkjet printers: How often do I print code in color? Reports in color? ANYTHING in color? Rare enough to not justify the laserjet price, that's how not often.
- Ethernet hubs: Intelligent blah, blah, blah VOIP blah, blah, blah. Anyone else tired of this? When my fly gets voice command, folks. That's when I'll care.
- PBXs: Just bought one a few years ago. Have no interest in spending money on something that isn't broken and won't be for years.
- PDAs: This is a case of Last Mile Land out here. I don't even HAVE a cell phone because I can't get a signal -- no towers near enough. A PDA would be nice, but Xmas presents just don't come that large usually.
- Serial/parallel ports: Nothing quite as reliable or easily configured as talking to a simple, straightforward port that doesn't give you any guff.
The rest of the predictions are expected and agreed upon. These are just ones I don't see migrating from anytime soon, and I'm sure lots of other people could make similar lists. Does that mean we're against progress? Hell no. It just means that we'd prefer if those vendors kept their "Convert Now!" pressure down until we damned well are ready to convert and not before. Some pressure is good...keeps us all looking at the new possibilities. But I don't need some jackass breathing down my neck about technologies (VOIP) that will make no sense in our corporation for ages to come yet. I also don't need vendors dropping support for "legacy" systems just because they came out with WhizBang Product 2.0.I found this very ironic... (Score:3, Insightful)
The article mentions Windows 9x as dying technology. No doubt about that. But the article makes this statement:
They make this prediction that these 92 million users are going to be driven for various reasons to Windows 2K/XP. What's funny about this is that the very same article then goes on to number two...
So if they predict this mass drive from Old Windows (tm) to New Windows (tm), why then tell us that 2-teir architecture with fat clients is dead? Windows is the fattest of the fat. What a silly contradiction. Of course, they give absolute minimum treatment to Linux with lame excuses as to why it isn't or won't be adopted.
A few other silly things about this article... Dot-matrix printers being replaced with laser or ink yet? This is either a "no shit, Sherlock" or it's a "never will happen." There's a LOT of dot-matrix printers out there that are used on carbon paper for instant duplicates. You can't do that with other types of printers without printing multiplesheets. Dot-matrix is also better for populating forms that can otherwise be filled out by humans (on the same carbon paper, btw). So, this article is either stating the obvious or dead wrong on this point. Useless.
Next, they mention CRTs will be replaced with LCD displays. I would argue that we'll see OLEDs which are cheaper to manufacture and higher quality than LCD displays long before LCDs really hit the same volume as CRTs. This is a nah-uh.
As for file servers being replaced by small storage appliances... uhm, I think they missed the point.
I cannot believe this article got posted to Slashdot. It's the most absurd thing I've ever seen. It was written by some poor schmuck who has no clue and is struggling to write to save his job. The simple trick here is to write something that'll spark controversy or something along those lines... utterly pointless, obvious, or outright wrong.
And here I am wasting my time.
Re:VB 6? (Score:2)
Re:VB 6? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:2)
Re:The Linux Middle Click (Score:2)
Re:The Linux Middle Click (Score:2)
Re:The Linux Middle Click (Score:2)
Re:The Linux Middle Click (Score:2)
If you're using (iirc) Mozilla 1.3 or better, type about:config in your address bar. Find the line that says "middlemouse.contentLoadURL". Right click on it and choose modify. Set it to false.
This turns off the behavior of middle click on an empty space going somewhere.
Re:The Linux Middle Click (Score:2)
MOD PARENT INFORMATIVE (Score:2)
Re:The Linux Middle Click (Score:2)
Re:They, of course... (Score:2, Funny)
Remember kids, there are two kinds of vessel in the ocean...submarines, and targets.
Re:They, of course... (Score:2)
Seems they got too much water in the people tank. That tends to be bad for morale
Re:They, of course... (Score:3, Informative)
Try the American Revolution. Unlike the CSA's submarines, the Continental subs didn't have the nasty habit of killing their entire crew.
Re:The Single-Button Mouse (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine you're an elementary school teacher with a class of 20 six-year-olds. Half of them have no computer experience at all. All of them have poor motor skills. You take them into a computer lab for the first time. You explain the workings of the mouse, and that one button is useful, and the other button is not. (Remember: six year olds. Think kiddie educational software.)
They start plugging away. One hand goes up. "My computer is broken. The mouse thingy isn't working." You kindly
Re:The Single-Button Mouse (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Single-Button Mouse (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Single-Button Mouse (Score:3, Funny)
Alex (age 2+5/6), has a bit of trouble using the mouse. He tends to click the wrong button. However he hasn't completely gotten the idea that he has to put the mouse cursor on top of the thing he wants to click yet. Kiddie programs written for a kid his age are not very difficult. If you can slide the mouse back & forth, you'll have no trouble.
Bethany (age 1/2), just sits there
Re:A couple comments (Score:2)
This still hasn't happened, and won't for a while yet. There is no viable replacement yet. Flash disks and CD/DVD are great for data storage, but that hasn't been the floppy's main niche for years.
These days the floppy is a lowest common denominator boot media. If your computer won't boot, you use a boot floppy, that alone is why it's still around.
I have floppies from my Apple 2 that still work after 20 years and not being used for years at a time. Most CDs I've burned
Re:Windows 9x, hmm?? (Score:2)