TheRasteri
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 12 months, 2011–2021
9:50 · 2.8M views · Mar 2, 2011
TheRasteri installs MS-DOS and Windows 1.0, then upgrades in place through nearly every Windows version up to Windows 7, checking which programs survive. Even Doom from 1993 still runs at the end.
HN cites it as evidence of Microsoft's backward compatibility and of upgrade engineering done well.
12 comments from Hacker News
> I often think about how incredibly inefficient modern software is given that we've had roughly the same level of productivity software ability (with varying levels of usability) for a few decades now. I distinctly remember my NT4 system of the late 90's, and how it was roughly as productive as my current machine, and I wonder just how much cruft is inside modern operating systems and applications. As a fellow young person (probably even younger than you), I remember watching this video this video two years ago when it came out and I remember gaining quite an appreciation for all the work put in over time in Windows and the complexity that it probably brings.
Reminds of a video I saw of a guy upgrading through every version of Windows. It's a sight to behold. this video
PHP's problem is it's soul. I will make an analogy about this. My analogy will be local, but i will explain it so you can understand. PHP is my university, Gazi University. It first established in 1926 as a Teacher Training Institute. Nobody knew that there will be a medical school or faculty of fine arts or even a faculty of dentistry. 1926 was the third of our newly established Republic and we needed teachers. So, Teacher Training Institute was born. Our main campus is very small. Law School or dentistry school is not in the campus. Because, as i said, nobody knew we need them in 1926. Ruby, C# and many other languages are METU: Middle East Technical University. METU was designed as a university. So, they got a gigantic land in Ankara (capital city of Turkey). They build all their building in there. Back to the PHP: PHP was born to solve one problem. Just one problem. When they got another problem, they solved it and added the function or implementation in the language. PHP is not designed at desk, it was not "feature-complete" at version 1.0. It's still getting more mature as version numbers increase. For example we get "traits" in 5.4. PHP is also Windows too (both Microsoft and PHP in a HN comment :) The most un-loved things in this community). Remember the video which a guy installs Windows 1.0 and successfully upgrade it to every version of windows with all his data and programs up to Windows 7? even doom from 1993 works! ( this video ) PHP is like Windows. I know the "pa
They neglected to mention just how hard it is to "upgrade" from XP. If you want to install Windows 7 or 8 then it will only do a clean install. You have to figure out all the apps you have installed, install media, receipts/keys/vendor site logins, do the "upgrade", and then play system administrator for a long time. Approximately no one has backups, so all that needs to be sorted out too, as well as doing a restoration. Then new UI has to be learned. Nothing is where it was. Various apps probably had to be upgraded too, and they'll have new UI to learn too. Then they have to figure out system administration - how do you do updates, make the funky printer work, deal with anti-virus. I didn't even mention figuring out that whole 32 versus 64 bits thing either. The time, effort and money involved, especially for small businesses/organisations and individuals is daunting, not to mention a distraction from what their actual business is. By far the easiest thing for them is to do nothing. Microsoft really screwed up by not making a good upgrade process. They know how to do it, and did it in the past. this video
Funny you say that, because Microsoft's software problems are often attributed to bending over backwards to be backward compatible while other vendors like Apple quickly kills compatibility with almost ever release, with even point releases. Take this game bundled with Windows 95. ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/deskapps/games/public/AAS/Hover.exe It runs even on Windows 8. Upgrading from Windows 1.0 to Windows 7. this video As I said in another comment, I still see some ASP and Visual Basic usage even after all these years, those applications are still supported in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Microsoft stopped making new versions because it wanted to move on to better technology. Want to take a poll on HN about what developers think of Visual Basic and Classic ASP? A case of damned if they do, damned if they don't.