Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech, and it is time for a tech
Speaker 1: Stuff Classic episode. Today's classic episode originally published on March five,
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. Chris Pallette, my beloved original co host,
Speaker 1: sat down with me to talk about legacy technology. Legacy systems.
Speaker 1: These would be old computer systems that are no longer
Speaker 1: supported necessarily but still need to stick around for one
Speaker 1: reason or another. So we have our conversation here about
Speaker 1: what legacy tech is and why it still exists. It's
Speaker 1: in an episode that was titled Old Tech Never Dies.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy are episode today comes courtesy of
Speaker 1: a listener, and this one is a message from Twitter.
Speaker 1: So let's hear that tweeting sound effect. I think I
Speaker 1: actually heard our producers say, do do out there? Tweet
Speaker 1: tweet tweet lovely. I hope that. I hope that's what
Speaker 1: we use. Anyway, I won't know until I get to
Speaker 1: listen to this later. But this comes to us from
Speaker 1: Wayne P. Seventy two, who says I would love to
Speaker 1: hear a show on old tech that won't go away.
Speaker 1: I E The Facts. Well, we are going to do
Speaker 1: an episode about that, but not one on just the Facts.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do that. You know, we might get sued.
Speaker 1: I was wondering. I was looking at him like, is
Speaker 1: he gonna do it? He's none our guy Friday. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about technology that a lot
Speaker 1: of people feel, or at least some people feel, or
Speaker 1: at least we at tex stuff feel has run its
Speaker 1: course and yet it's still around. Yes, and The Facts
Speaker 1: is one of those. So we actually had a couple
Speaker 1: that we thought about that we ended up deciding not
Speaker 1: to include in this list, but we should go ahead
Speaker 1: and mention them because a couple of years ago they
Speaker 1: may have made the list. Yeah, that's true. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because right before we were we were going to record,
Speaker 1: we were talking about how we had done an episode
Speaker 1: on abandoned ware, which is stuff that, uh, people just
Speaker 1: give up on. Yeah, usually it's a company that gives
Speaker 1: up on it, but yeah, it's the stuff that people
Speaker 1: no longer even bother using, and it's just sort of
Speaker 1: part of history. This is the opposite people will not
Speaker 1: let go of. And the two that we were thinking
Speaker 1: of that we did not include because we just feel
Speaker 1: that they've both kind of faded away enough so that
Speaker 1: it's a very small percentage of people that still hold
Speaker 1: onto These are pages, which you know, sometimes some people
Speaker 1: are a few people, especially folks in like the medical
Speaker 1: field or whatever, we'll still use them, but pages are
Speaker 1: pretty much been replaced by cell phones and smartphones, and
Speaker 1: p d as also replaced primarily by smartphones personal digital
Speaker 1: assistance not a public displaces of affection. Those will never
Speaker 1: go out of style smoogy smodgy. So those are the
Speaker 1: two that we almost included but didn't because we feel
Speaker 1: that there's just not enough of a population supporting them
Speaker 1: to merit being on this list. So since Wayne brought
Speaker 1: this up, we probably should go ahead and start with
Speaker 1: fax machines. Yes, and yeah, I mean the fax machine
Speaker 1: still used in many many offices. You still see people's
Speaker 1: facts numbers. You know, there's one out there in the office.
Speaker 1: I've actually used it quite a few times. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, I mean, well, it uses you know,
Speaker 1: of course, it uses a similar imaging technology to a
Speaker 1: scanner or a copier machine. Um, there's nothing really wrong
Speaker 1: with it. It Uh, you know, it has a modem.
Speaker 1: That's the that's part of the problem. I think it
Speaker 1: has a mote a minute. And uh you know when
Speaker 1: you when you scan some stuff in it saves it
Speaker 1: in memory. These days it does anyway. You don't have
Speaker 1: to put it in one page at a time, although
Speaker 1: you used to, um where you put it on there
Speaker 1: and it would it dials the number. It makes a
Speaker 1: connection with the fax machine on the other side, just
Speaker 1: like you would uh with a dial up internet connection. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a handshake between the two devices. They
Speaker 1: agree on the protocol and it says, okay, go ahead
Speaker 1: and send your whatever message this is going to be.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, the facts either takes the information
Speaker 1: from memory or it scans each page individually and sends
Speaker 1: it along down the line really slowly. Receiving machine receives
Speaker 1: that information, decodes, it changes it into the type of
Speaker 1: information it needs in order to print prints to some paper.
Speaker 1: And then you have the facts on the other end,
Speaker 1: which somebody puts in a tray and it never gets
Speaker 1: to the person that's supposed to Could you ever have
Speaker 1: to use a fax machine that had a roll of
Speaker 1: paper as a wasted individual sheets. Yeah, they had the
Speaker 1: thermal printers and of course that that just curls up. Also,
Speaker 1: it's yes, I do not miss those days. So today
Speaker 1: we write. What we could do is, let's say we
Speaker 1: have a scanner and we just scan a document in
Speaker 1: and send it via change it over to say a
Speaker 1: PDF format, which is readily available. It's easy to find
Speaker 1: a reader for PDF. A lot of free reader a
Speaker 1: free reader, and a lot of word processing programs and
Speaker 1: things are capable of reading a PDF file and uh,
Speaker 1: you just send that via email and you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about wasting paper or any of that mess
Speaker 1: Or if say a fact machine is busy with a
Speaker 1: with a call, then you won't get a rejection and
Speaker 1: have to try it again. That's another thing that can
Speaker 1: be kind of irritating with sending a fact. Let's say
Speaker 1: you've got like a twenty page facts and you start
Speaker 1: going through and you don't know until it's gone through
Speaker 1: all twenty pages stored in a memory, and tried to
Speaker 1: send it that it didn't go through successfully. Maybe you
Speaker 1: didn't put in the numb correctly, Maybe the machine on
Speaker 1: the other end, is not turned on properly, or it's
Speaker 1: or it's busy, and then you have to try and
Speaker 1: do it again. Yes, it's so irritating, but then you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: scanning it and sending it by via PDF much much
Speaker 1: more paper friendly anyway, you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: wasting so much paper, and also it's not so time consuming.
Speaker 1: That being said, I still facts things because often some
Speaker 1: of the conferences I go to request that they send
Speaker 1: credentials and I have to send them via fax. Uh,
Speaker 1: not all of them except email. Plus, depending upon your
Speaker 1: access to a scanner or a copier that can have
Speaker 1: scanning functionality, you may not have that luxury. So I
Speaker 1: think fax machine is kind of borderline on this. Because
Speaker 1: there is technology out there that can do stuff that
Speaker 1: would replace the fax machine. I don't know that it's
Speaker 1: propagated widely enough yet for it to really happen, especially
Speaker 1: for small businesses. For large businesses, almost all of them
Speaker 1: have some sort of scanner or copier that can can
Speaker 1: replace a fax machine. I think we're on the verge
Speaker 1: really of this this being a technology that's like that,
Speaker 1: but it's it's far enough along the way that you could,
Speaker 1: you could make the argument. I think it's a value,
Speaker 1: a valid argument to include it on this list. But
Speaker 1: there's some other stuff I think that that merits that
Speaker 1: hit me with one. Well, this one is also on
Speaker 1: the verge. Landlines. Yeah, landlines. Again, more and more people
Speaker 1: are abandoning a landline in favor of just having a
Speaker 1: cell phone because you know, for one thing, a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't want to have to deal with two
Speaker 1: different phone bills or have like something packaged up where
Speaker 1: they have fewer choices. You know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of services out there that will package a cell phone
Speaker 1: and landline, uh, offering right where you can get a bundle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can get a bundle, but then you are limited
Speaker 1: to whatever options they have. You don't. You can't just
Speaker 1: go out and say, oh, I happen to really love
Speaker 1: this one particular phone, I want that to go with
Speaker 1: this plan. That's not the way that works. Yeah. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I think you see that primarily
Speaker 1: from companies that offer both land lines, and you know
Speaker 1: that you don't see a lot of cellphone providers going, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what we're gonna get into the landline business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not well, it's kind of hard to edge into that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, landlines are starting to kind of disappear now.
Speaker 1: There are some legitimate reasons why keeping a landline around.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad idea, like emergency calls. Emergency calls
Speaker 1: is a big one because your call can be traced
Speaker 1: to your location very easily over a landline, so that
Speaker 1: let's say there's an emergency where you can't even vocalize maybe,
Speaker 1: which can happen sometimes dialing an emergency number that's all
Speaker 1: you might be able to do. Well with a landline,
Speaker 1: they are going to be able to find you. With
Speaker 1: a cell phone or smartphone, they may not be able
Speaker 1: to get your location as accurately as they could with
Speaker 1: over a landline or even a voipe line. You'll find
Speaker 1: out that a lot of voice services have issues with
Speaker 1: calling emergency services. That being said that you can usually
Speaker 1: get a landline phone and plug it into any outlet
Speaker 1: and it will still allow you to make emergency calls
Speaker 1: even if you don't have a landline account, so you
Speaker 1: can still make a call to it well. In the
Speaker 1: United States, a call to nine one one, for example,
Speaker 1: UM and the UK, that number is really really long one.
Speaker 1: According to the I T. Crowd and you have to
Speaker 1: sing it to a song anyway. Uh, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: It's it's an episode that anyone who's watched The I
Speaker 1: T Crowd will get that. Anyone who hasn't, you should
Speaker 1: go watch the I T Crowd because it's awesome or
Speaker 1: the Crowd if you prefer anyway. The The other reason
Speaker 1: besides for emergencies is uh is that it's something that
Speaker 1: if there's a power outage on cell service, you haven't
Speaker 1: you have an alternate means of communication. So not just
Speaker 1: personal emergencies, but regional emerg agencies. It's a good thing
Speaker 1: to have. That being said, I think there it is
Speaker 1: more common to run into people who have just adopted
Speaker 1: the cell phone only approach. I mean my household is
Speaker 1: that way, so yeah, I can take it with you.
Speaker 1: And you know, you you have your phone no matter
Speaker 1: where you are, so when you're at home, you have
Speaker 1: your phone. Well, then then the phone itself is really
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, and myself included, it's it's
Speaker 1: transitioning into a device that I used to access the
Speaker 1: Internet more than I used to for voice communication. Because
Speaker 1: almost all my communication now or a lot of my
Speaker 1: communication now is through text messages, email and social networking services.
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, I usually make two or three
Speaker 1: calls a day, but they're very short, and they're usually
Speaker 1: between me and my wife, Um, mostly me apologizing for
Speaker 1: something stupid I've done. I'm sorry, baby, that's all every
Speaker 1: single conversation starts. It's a main thing. I've actually heard
Speaker 1: one side of that conversation before. Yeah, yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: a rare thing. So so do you have a list?
Speaker 1: How about this calculators and adding machines, because computers do it,
Speaker 1: smartphones do it. I mean you've got the birds and
Speaker 1: bees do it. You got a lot of calculators built
Speaker 1: into other devices, So to see a standalone calculator is
Speaker 1: kind of interesting in the sense, you know, we have that,
Speaker 1: we have the technology at our fingertips almost all the time,
Speaker 1: So why do we need stand alone calculators apart from
Speaker 1: scientific calculators, which I mean calculator A lot of a lot. Again,
Speaker 1: a lot of computers and smartphones can do that. You
Speaker 1: just have to get the apps for it. But I
Speaker 1: can understand someone wanting one of those as opposed to
Speaker 1: a phone. And there's certain applications where I can I
Speaker 1: can be a little more lenient. For example, let's say
Speaker 1: that you are in a university class and you have
Speaker 1: a final, and you're allowed to have a calculator next
Speaker 1: to your your work on your final, you might not
Speaker 1: be allowed to have a smartphone because you might use
Speaker 1: the smartphone to cheat. Right, So in that case, I can.
Speaker 1: That's that's a specific case where I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I understand that. But for a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that we use calculators for, either a calculator program on
Speaker 1: a computer or smartphone or spreadsheet can do all of
Speaker 1: that work. Sometimes in a way that's much easier because
Speaker 1: you can do things like in a spreadsheet, you can
Speaker 1: copy and paste formulas so that you don't have to
Speaker 1: keep entering in the same thing over and over for
Speaker 1: different calculations. You just you just cutting paste or copy
Speaker 1: and paste rather not cutting paste. Um. So to me though,
Speaker 1: that's another old technology that I'm surprised is still around,
Speaker 1: at least in the at the level that it's still around.
Speaker 1: How about you gut another one? Well, um, to stick
Speaker 1: with our earlier topic, the phone book. Ah, yes, the
Speaker 1: yellow pages. Why why does that exist? Why are we
Speaker 1: killing trees? Well, because not everyone has access to the uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the Internet, although you could argue that they
Speaker 1: would also have access to it, um, you know, by
Speaker 1: calling and you know, checking in with that directory assistance.
Speaker 1: I think though that, you know, I think that's a
Speaker 1: safe argument for printing the phone book. Now the question
Speaker 1: is do they need to here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it everywhere else in
Speaker 1: the world. Here in the United States, at least where
Speaker 1: we are, they deliver a phone book to everybody's house.
Speaker 1: There should be an opt out, yes, what it would
Speaker 1: be nice to have people, uh opt in, So yes,
Speaker 1: I do want the phone book, or really an opt
Speaker 1: out would probably be better. But that way you can
Speaker 1: start with, Yeah, that way you could say, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got the Internet, I can look up stuff on
Speaker 1: their uh, I've got all the numbers I need of
Speaker 1: the friends I have. UM, A lot of my friends
Speaker 1: aren't listed in the phone book, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: want to be listed there. So the businesses almost all
Speaker 1: have some sort of web presence and need that they don't.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of online directories that take the
Speaker 1: place of Yellow Pages. So yeah, that's one of those
Speaker 1: things where I think I would love to not receive that. Now,
Speaker 1: it does raise the question that if we were to
Speaker 1: enact that we being christened myself, you know, because we
Speaker 1: have that kind of power. So tech stuff enacts this
Speaker 1: thing where we were able to opt out of the
Speaker 1: Yellow Pages delivery. If enough people opted out, then would
Speaker 1: that change the economy of scale of producing the Yellow
Speaker 1: Pages so that producing a fewer amount for for the
Speaker 1: people who stay in is actually more expensive per book.
Speaker 1: And therefore it becomes a problem, uh to fund the
Speaker 1: printing of the Yellow Pages. Yeah, yeah, well, of course
Speaker 1: part of the we make it up in volume is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Part of the part of the problem
Speaker 1: there is that the Yellow Pages makes its money from advertising. Um,
Speaker 1: those those big ads that did you see on different
Speaker 1: places for you know, when you go look up the
Speaker 1: plumber or or somebody else moving company and you see
Speaker 1: the full page ads they paid, you know, to reach
Speaker 1: a certain number of people. All we're going to print
Speaker 1: two million copies of this Okay, maybe that that's kind
Speaker 1: of large. There, We're gonna print five thousand copies of this,
Speaker 1: UM and so your your ad is going to be
Speaker 1: there in everyone's home that we deliver this to UM.
Speaker 1: If they said Okay, well, we're only going to print
Speaker 1: ten thousand of these books for people who really need them.
Speaker 1: Then the advertise they can't command that kind of price. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. So you know, I don't think we're going
Speaker 1: to be able to talk him out of dropping them
Speaker 1: off on our door because I promptly put them in
Speaker 1: the recycle bin. But yeah, so here's here's a similar
Speaker 1: thing to that, you know, in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: I know the reason why they're still around. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of again a dying thing. CDs that you need
Speaker 1: to install programs. Yes, and they're they're really similar when
Speaker 1: you get right down to it. Um. In both cases,
Speaker 1: not everyone has the technology they need to get the
Speaker 1: information an alternative, alternate way. But but yeah, for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, they're buying computers now that may not
Speaker 1: even have an optical drive, so there's no use for
Speaker 1: that CD. It's just it's or DVD or DVD. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just taking up space because there's no way to
Speaker 1: put that in your machine you want. You would needs
Speaker 1: some sort of USB drive, or you would have to
Speaker 1: connect to the internet and download whatever drivers you might
Speaker 1: need for something. As opposed to having a CD for it,
Speaker 1: and um, I would love to see thumb drives take
Speaker 1: the place of those just for saving space. Plus the
Speaker 1: fact that if you can wipe whatever is on that
Speaker 1: thumb drive off if you don't need it, then you've
Speaker 1: got some extra storage space. I'm not saying that I
Speaker 1: do that frequently. I'm just saying I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of thumb drives. Yeah, yeah, with a lot of logos
Speaker 1: on them. Well that we're getting towards the end of
Speaker 1: my list, to the point where, um, I've got it.
Speaker 1: I've got more on here. But those are the things
Speaker 1: that we've talked about so far. Um, are things that
Speaker 1: we sort of think about that um, you know why
Speaker 1: and why do people have that? Then you realize that, well,
Speaker 1: really there are quite quite a number of people that
Speaker 1: still depend on those, you know, more of those real sure,
Speaker 1: because I have CDs and DVDs in general, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think fall into that category. Uh, and even blue rays
Speaker 1: at some to some extent, Um, I think these are
Speaker 1: not as far along say the Yellow Pages, but uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and a lot of companies are very concerned
Speaker 1: about the fact that these are technologies that are slowly
Speaker 1: becoming obsolete and uh, digital distribution is becoming the the
Speaker 1: like buzz phrase for entertainment. Uh, and that causes concern
Speaker 1: for multiple industries. Right. Well, Netflix think it's awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing is, though, they tripped on it because on
Speaker 1: this very thing, because they were ready to move to
Speaker 1: US digital distribution to people are not ready yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a balance you have to strike between pushing
Speaker 1: people toward a new technology and writing out the waves
Speaker 1: so that you don't alienate your customer base. Right. But
Speaker 1: the people I think, or the organizations I think, are
Speaker 1: really concerned with this. You have the m p a
Speaker 1: A the r i a A. So that's the Motion
Speaker 1: Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association America.
Speaker 1: So you've got these two different major organizations that have
Speaker 1: lots and lots of really big companies in them, and
Speaker 1: they're very much concerned about this because they make a
Speaker 1: lot of money selling physical media, actual physical products that
Speaker 1: have content on them, whether the movies, television shows, music, whatever, books, books.
Speaker 1: So moving from that to a digital one scares a
Speaker 1: lot of companies for legitimate reason, legitimate reasons. We're not
Speaker 1: saying that there. They shouldn't be scared. Um, And then
Speaker 1: you've got retail organizations. So we've already seen in the
Speaker 1: United States several retail organizations in the last few years
Speaker 1: go belly up because they cannot compete with the digital
Speaker 1: distribution method. You know, it's hard to find a record
Speaker 1: store anymore. Right, Well, you walk into a Best Buy
Speaker 1: and suddenly all the music and movies aren't front and
Speaker 1: center like they used to be. You know, it used
Speaker 1: to be that as soon as you walked into the store,
Speaker 1: all of that was front loaded right there at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of the store, so you had to walk
Speaker 1: through it. Well, as digital distribution gets more and more popular,
Speaker 1: that section moves further and further back in the store.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason for that. It's because you can't
Speaker 1: have that be the focus of your store when that
Speaker 1: whole business model is starting to deteriorate. So I put
Speaker 1: that along the same lines as the installation CDs and
Speaker 1: the Yellow Pages. It's just it's not quite far as
Speaker 1: far along. I mean, again, if you don't have a
Speaker 1: broadband connection, then physical media is the way to go,
Speaker 1: because you just you cannot physically get the information you
Speaker 1: need to be able to watch the content or listen
Speaker 1: to the content you want and a a good enough quality.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you're gonna be buffering every thirty seconds. Trust me,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm talking about. Until recently that was me. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Then there are other technologies that I think kind of
Speaker 1: died out and then came back. Well, there's one that
Speaker 1: needs to go, especially here in the United States. Hit
Speaker 1: me incandescent lightbulbs. It's a good one. I didn't have
Speaker 1: that on my list. Yeah, the good old light bulb
Speaker 1: that has its roots and um Edison's and other people's work.
Speaker 1: A lot of people say that Edison didn't actually invent
Speaker 1: a lightbulb. Um he improved upon a design. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: he was instrumental though and getting it into our homes
Speaker 1: without Without him, whenever we had a bright idea, we'd
Speaker 1: have no way of putting, uh, some sort of indicator
Speaker 1: around our heads to let people know we had a
Speaker 1: bright eye down. Yeah, you know, you don't he didn't
Speaker 1: hear that little ping noises sort of. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: little light bulb be like it would be like something
Speaker 1: like you know, a tweet anyhow. Um. Yeah, they I
Speaker 1: mean they use a lot more electricity, they give off
Speaker 1: a lot more heat, um with you know, wasted energy.
Speaker 1: Um and and other products have come along that are
Speaker 1: superior toward it to it, like fluorescence and L E.
Speaker 1: D s. Yeah, of course fluorescence. Now they have their
Speaker 1: own problems. Of course there is mercury in them. Uh,
Speaker 1: you don't want to just go around smashing fluorescence on
Speaker 1: the stuff. And LED expensive. Yes, so LEDs are very expensive,
Speaker 1: but they last a whole lot longer and use a
Speaker 1: lot less electricity. Um, so you know, they're still we're
Speaker 1: still in that transition phase, but we don't have to
Speaker 1: use incandescence in Some societies have already outlawed them. The
Speaker 1: United States is moving away from them, and of course
Speaker 1: it's a big country. They're lots of people. Unfortunately, they're
Speaker 1: dirt cheap. Yes, yes, that's that's the you know, when
Speaker 1: you get the economics involved, people might say, I understand
Speaker 1: why you want us to move away from these, but
Speaker 1: these are affordable to us. Even if you present the
Speaker 1: argument of well, a fluorescent light bulb is going to
Speaker 1: last longer, therefore you're going to have to buy fewer
Speaker 1: of them, and then the economy ends up paying out
Speaker 1: in the long run. Some people are living in a
Speaker 1: short term kind of lifestyle through no fault of their
Speaker 1: own they are. They cannot look that far ahead because
Speaker 1: that's not the way the economy works out for them.
Speaker 1: I've been there too. I've been in that situation where
Speaker 1: it's paycheck to paycheck, and you do you think, Well,
Speaker 1: I would love to be more environmentally friendly, and I
Speaker 1: would love to have something that's going to last longer,
Speaker 1: but I honestly cannot put that in my budget. Right.
Speaker 1: It's tough. It's not going to be much longer though, Nope.
Speaker 1: Before there's no choice in the matter. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good one. Uh, well, there's the technology I was
Speaker 1: talking about that that essentially died out and has been
Speaker 1: never really died out, but it definitely faded away and
Speaker 1: then has come back. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: Do you mean the operating system that just won't die? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not, But we can talk about that. Okay. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan from two thousand nineteen busting in here to
Speaker 1: this two thousand and twelve episode to say we got
Speaker 1: more to say about legacy tech. But first let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. So you're talking
Speaker 1: about XP, Windows XP, Windows XP. Alright, So Windows XP
Speaker 1: was one of those things that got widespread adoption, particularly
Speaker 1: in the business world. Well, it was such an improvement
Speaker 1: on his predecessor, you know Windows two and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a it's a functional system. Let's
Speaker 1: you know, let's face it, you know, taking everything aside.
Speaker 1: If you you put all the operating systems together on
Speaker 1: a table, XP is a great operating system. It's it's
Speaker 1: in general, it's pretty stable. There's a work course, it's
Speaker 1: a workhorse. So many companies have standard on XP, standardized
Speaker 1: on XP that they're they're comfortable with it, and that
Speaker 1: I think is the reason it's stuck around is really
Speaker 1: the corporate world. Um, you know, I used to work
Speaker 1: for a company that would stay one generation of Windows
Speaker 1: back from what the cutting edge was because everything was stable.
Speaker 1: They got it where it was working. They had thousands
Speaker 1: of people to support, and they wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: all the service packs were out before they would update
Speaker 1: to the next operating Yeah, if you had if you
Speaker 1: have thousands of employees for your company, then you want
Speaker 1: you want something that's going to be stable because if
Speaker 1: you start having failure, is you're going to spend more
Speaker 1: time responding to two problems than you can't doing business,
Speaker 1: and that's just not a very smart way of doing things.
Speaker 1: So staying with a tried and true system makes sense.
Speaker 1: This is somewhat complicated by the fact that even though
Speaker 1: we're at Windows seven, so we're two generations beyond Windows XP.
Speaker 1: Now Windows Vista has us stigma on it about being
Speaker 1: an undependable, over inflated, difficult to use operating system. Now,
Speaker 1: some of the problems that Vista had early on were
Speaker 1: addressed by Microsoft, you know, so it's it's a different
Speaker 1: system than it was when it debuted. But that being said,
Speaker 1: that first impression was so negative that a lot of
Speaker 1: companies just that was that's where they drew the line
Speaker 1: is that we are not going to Windows Vista because
Speaker 1: it's just too many there are too many problems. Beyond that, though,
Speaker 1: a related related term to this outdated technology idea is
Speaker 1: the legacy system. So a legacy system is a is
Speaker 1: any kind of system, doesn't have to be technology, But
Speaker 1: in technology, what we're talking about is some sort of
Speaker 1: system that is a core component of the way a
Speaker 1: business does business, and you want to keep that core
Speaker 1: component going, and replacing it would mean having to to
Speaker 1: too well, reinvent a an enormous amount of your business.
Speaker 1: So let's say you've got some sort of computer program
Speaker 1: that is instrumental to what you do, and it runs
Speaker 1: perfectly on Windows XP. That's the that's the foundation that
Speaker 1: it was built for. So then when the new operating
Speaker 1: systems come out, they may not support that legacy system,
Speaker 1: so you are forced to stay with an older operating
Speaker 1: system or else you can't do business. So that's one
Speaker 1: reason why a lot of the companies are still on
Speaker 1: Windows XP. They have some sort of program, software application
Speaker 1: that runs on XP and will not run on anything else,
Speaker 1: And in order for them to be able to run
Speaker 1: on something else, they'd have to pour so many resources
Speaker 1: into building a new tool that does the same thing
Speaker 1: that they're old tool, which is still working perfectly fine
Speaker 1: for what they need. It just doesn't make sense. You know,
Speaker 1: that much time, money, and effort. You can say, well,
Speaker 1: we could put that towards this and then update all
Speaker 1: our systems and then hope everything works, or we could
Speaker 1: stick with what we have and just conctentrate doing business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you if you have Windows seven
Speaker 1: at home and XP at work, you may be frustrated
Speaker 1: by this, but that you're not really the person that
Speaker 1: is the most frustrated. The people who are most frustrated
Speaker 1: by this are the ones working in Redmond, Washington at
Speaker 1: Microsoft who have been trying to convince both uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the the casual user and the corporate user to switch
Speaker 1: over to Windows seven. And the thing is Windows XP
Speaker 1: just works. Yeah, they know. Microsoft has stopped supporting it
Speaker 1: and then and they're they've they've basically said, look, we're
Speaker 1: not going to do anything for you. They don't distribute
Speaker 1: it anymore. Really, it's an eleven year old operating system.
Speaker 1: That said. In researching this yesterday, Jonathan and I ran
Speaker 1: across some very interesting news. Good grief. There's an article
Speaker 1: in zd net Australia that quoted statistics from net applications
Speaker 1: in December and Windows XP is the dominant operating system
Speaker 1: out there. It had forty six point five of market
Speaker 1: share and in January it had forty seven point one
Speaker 1: nine market share. Windows XP is growing, is continuing to
Speaker 1: increase an adoption rate. Excuse me for a second while
Speaker 1: I banged my head against the microphone. Now carry on,
Speaker 1: um So anyhow, Vista is in third place among the
Speaker 1: Windows operating systems and Windows seven is increasing as well. Um,
Speaker 1: but imagining that an operating system has been discontinued is
Speaker 1: technically no longer supported, you know, and it's increasing in
Speaker 1: market share. That's kind of impressive. Ya, That's not the
Speaker 1: worst of it, though. That's the XP story is is
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of mind blowing. But that's not the
Speaker 1: most mind blowing story you sent me. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: And and this is the thing is these these two
Speaker 1: are tied together. And those of you in the know
Speaker 1: are gonna go, oh, um, but but no. The reason
Speaker 1: I mentioned XP first is because Windows XP works. It
Speaker 1: does what it's supposed to. It's stable, it's pretty secure.
Speaker 1: But in contrast, contrast, there's another technology that Microsoft would
Speaker 1: really really really really like to see end of life
Speaker 1: by everyone, and for very good reasons. And yet it
Speaker 1: also increased in market share. Please please go ahead and
Speaker 1: reveal what it was. Internet Explorer six. Uh. Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: six also increase in adoption rate. Um so Internet Explores
Speaker 1: six Now that words fail me really, um, they've they've
Speaker 1: Microsoft tried its best to kill Internet. It's not it's
Speaker 1: it's not a safe system to use. It's not. And
Speaker 1: websites will warn you when you go on there are
Speaker 1: websites that you can't see if you have Internet Explorer six,
Speaker 1: you try and go to that website and you won't
Speaker 1: be able to view it. Please, if you're using i
Speaker 1: E six, update, please please try anything, try the newest
Speaker 1: version of Internet Explorer. We're not even telling you to
Speaker 1: switch brands. You can. You can update to the latest
Speaker 1: version of the Internet Explorer and it is going to
Speaker 1: be a world of difference. The only reason I could
Speaker 1: see anyone using i E six is that they have
Speaker 1: a machine too old to run anything better. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well there are some The reasons to use legacy systems
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases have to do with a
Speaker 1: specific tool. Yes, if you are so. Let's say that
Speaker 1: you've got a corporation and that corporation has an internal network.
Speaker 1: An intranet is not an Internet, and at in order
Speaker 1: to access this Internet, you need to use a specific
Speaker 1: kind of browser because it was built to support a
Speaker 1: specific type of browser. Then I could understand as well
Speaker 1: having Internet Explorer six. I would pity that person because
Speaker 1: that is a miserable experience, but that could be the case.
Speaker 1: You could have a corporate system where let's say you
Speaker 1: need to go in and manage things like a digital timesheet,
Speaker 1: or you have to request some vacation time or sick time,
Speaker 1: or you're doing something like you're changing your You might
Speaker 1: even be putting in things like an employee record into
Speaker 1: an company's Internet system, and the only way you can
Speaker 1: access it is through an outdated browser. Um. There are
Speaker 1: plenty of systems that are like that. I've seen lots
Speaker 1: of them where they will tell you don't use any
Speaker 1: other version of any other browser because some of the
Speaker 1: functionality will not work. If you use it. You might
Speaker 1: be able to see some stuff and access some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that's on the the corporate Internet, but you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to get the full run of
Speaker 1: it unless you use this particular browser. Yeah, yeah, see yeah.
Speaker 1: An article in Ours Technica UM published on February first,
Speaker 1: twelve said that in January, uh Internet Explorer grew more,
Speaker 1: its market share grew more than any other browser. In fact,
Speaker 1: Chrome went down a little bit, but the biggest share
Speaker 1: of that growth for I E was in i E six.
Speaker 1: So so, um, people are going to write in to
Speaker 1: tell you that that was really loud, um, But anyway,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it felt kind of and I understand to see.
Speaker 1: The thing is that one of the things that's common
Speaker 1: about most of these technologies is that UM there there's
Speaker 1: some good reason why some people are gonna want to
Speaker 1: use it. You know, perhaps you have a machine that
Speaker 1: just won't go any it won't run Vista or or
Speaker 1: Windows seven or Windows eight. Uh, you have a machine
Speaker 1: that that where are you have an internet where you
Speaker 1: I need to use I E six to run it
Speaker 1: otherwise it won't work A O L is the Internet? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's possible. I mean for the lightbulb thing. The socket
Speaker 1: fits the same size. I really don't have it. They're cheap.
Speaker 1: There is a reason to use that. The thing is
Speaker 1: that the majority of people still using UM I E
Speaker 1: six and Windows XP. The majority of those people probably
Speaker 1: are not doing it because their computers are slower, because
Speaker 1: they are reliant on a legacy system. It's probably more
Speaker 1: because their corporation, their corporation won't let them right, or
Speaker 1: they just don't know. Yeah, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who just have don't have They just don't know
Speaker 1: that there there's a better way out there to them.
Speaker 1: They've associated specific kind of browser with that's the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's not a browser you use to access the Internet.
Speaker 1: To note that is the to them, that is the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's or a little box of a little blinking line
Speaker 1: on the top. It doesn't weigh anything. It's kept up
Speaker 1: top of big ben Yeah, this is this is definitely
Speaker 1: the type of water cooler thing where you stand around
Speaker 1: and go, yeah, why do people still use that? I
Speaker 1: mean there in general, there's a reason why people still
Speaker 1: use some of these things, but why why some of
Speaker 1: them are so widespread is another question. I still have
Speaker 1: a few more. Yes, there's the one that I had
Speaker 1: said had died out but came back. This No, this
Speaker 1: is one thing. This is a different one, and this
Speaker 1: is one that didn't really die out either. It's one
Speaker 1: of those where it's more for nostalgias sake, I think
Speaker 1: than anything else. The Dreamcast Vinyl Oh yeah, so vinyl
Speaker 1: records is what we're talking about, not not the material vinyl,
Speaker 1: but vinyl vinyl record albums. So yeah, something you would
Speaker 1: play on a record player. Uh. There are people who
Speaker 1: argue audiophiles who will argue that the vinyl gives the best,
Speaker 1: truest sound to whatever the original recording is, and there
Speaker 1: are others who say that that's a bunch of bologny
Speaker 1: that if you are using the proper digital equipment, there
Speaker 1: is no humanly detectable way of differentiating the two. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go into that too much because it's
Speaker 1: it's frankly, it's something that I would need to see
Speaker 1: a lot more studies on because there are lots of
Speaker 1: different arguments to either side, and there are certain people
Speaker 1: out there who have very very finely attuned senses of
Speaker 1: hearing that might be able to detect those differences. I'm
Speaker 1: not one of them. I do not have a great
Speaker 1: sense of hearing, so perhaps the fault is on my
Speaker 1: me and not on the technology. But still, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that vinyl has never really gone away, considering
Speaker 1: that a lot of the the trend has been to
Speaker 1: favor convenience over perceived quality, right, because when MP three
Speaker 1: has got really popular, a lot of them were recorded
Speaker 1: at terrible bit rates and you were losing a lot
Speaker 1: of information, and in some cases that was detectable, and
Speaker 1: you could tell that you were losing some of the
Speaker 1: highs and lows. There wasn't a whole lot of variation
Speaker 1: between the lowest of the lows and the highest of
Speaker 1: the highest, so you weren't getting a really dynamic sound
Speaker 1: like you could with a better recording. But today that's
Speaker 1: not as big an issue, right, Well, with people having
Speaker 1: higher bandwidth connections, Uh, they're more willing to do that
Speaker 1: because you're you're able to include some of the frequencies that, um,
Speaker 1: you know make this sound richer. Yeah. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's one of those where I'm just surprised now.
Speaker 1: That being said, I own a lot of vinyl folks,
Speaker 1: well a vinyl fan, and there's a um, there's a
Speaker 1: better resurgence and manufacturing vinyl, yeah, which is funny because
Speaker 1: the equipment almost completely died out. Yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: there's a time in the late eighties and into the
Speaker 1: nineties where finding a turntable was if you weren't if
Speaker 1: you weren't buying DJ equipment, it was pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was you had to go to like some sort
Speaker 1: of hobby store or like an audio file. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: now now you can find them all over the place.
Speaker 1: In fact, I see them like I've seen plenty of
Speaker 1: ones that you plug in via USB to a computer
Speaker 1: where you can rip things to MP three or you
Speaker 1: can actually just listen to it over a computer. Or
Speaker 1: plug it into another sound system. Yeah, it's so it's
Speaker 1: started to it's been enjoying a resurgence nowhere near what
Speaker 1: it was when that was the way to listen to music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to give the wrong impression,
Speaker 1: but it has come back from what look like it was.
Speaker 1: It looked like it was going to go extinct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of a lot of independent bands have
Speaker 1: been recording and releasing their records on vinyl pressing because, uh,
Speaker 1: truth be told, it's not as as expensive as you
Speaker 1: might think. Um, so, you know, it's it's enjoyed a
Speaker 1: resurgence in in popularity for bands as a you know, hey,
Speaker 1: look how cool we are we have a vinyl record. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a gimmick almost, by the way, Yeah
Speaker 1: for some folks. Yeah, Jonathan two thousand nineteen. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: busy making my own legacy. So while I do, why
Speaker 1: don't we take a quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: I also wrote down typewriters because they still have not
Speaker 1: died away. I haven't seen a typewriter in public in
Speaker 1: a long time. No, but I used to work in
Speaker 1: an office that still used typewriters to fill out forms
Speaker 1: instead of trying to create digital forms. They still had
Speaker 1: physical forms and physical typewriters that you had to use
Speaker 1: to fill out the forms. It was not that long ago,
Speaker 1: so I have them down here. I mean, maybe they've
Speaker 1: died out in the five years since I joined how
Speaker 1: stuff works. It's possible. That's that's long enough. But I
Speaker 1: have a feeling that if I went back to this office,
Speaker 1: I'd still find that typewriter and it would be mocking
Speaker 1: me as it always did. Um. And then let's see,
Speaker 1: do have anything else? Like, yes, there is something else
Speaker 1: I have? Uh scheduled television? Yeah, because now we've reached
Speaker 1: a point where with the uh the invention of DVRs
Speaker 1: and with streaming services like Hulu and Netflix, the the
Speaker 1: importance of a TV schedule has decreased dramatically. Right like
Speaker 1: back in back in the day, you would have to
Speaker 1: plan your night around around your stories if you wanted
Speaker 1: to watch television. So if you wanted to watch, you know,
Speaker 1: a particular sitcom, you had to be there in front
Speaker 1: your TV at eight pm on a Thursday night, or
Speaker 1: else you weren't going to see it, or you had
Speaker 1: to set a VCR to tape it. Later on you
Speaker 1: could do that. But before that, even you know, before
Speaker 1: VCRs became household items, you know. Yeah, and that's another one, TOCR.
Speaker 1: But VCRs are pretty much on them, they're pretty much dead.
Speaker 1: VCRs are almost dead. So but yeah, the scheduled television stuff.
Speaker 1: Before there were VCRs, the only other option you had
Speaker 1: was to set your kid down and tell have the
Speaker 1: kid just act out the entire episode when you got home,
Speaker 1: so you could find out what ha and on MASH
Speaker 1: I know, I know season seasons two through four like
Speaker 1: the back of my hand. Anyway, Uh yeah, the but yeah,
Speaker 1: that Now we have DVRs and we have streaming services.
Speaker 1: Even DVRs now are starting to kind of reach a
Speaker 1: point where I think a lot of people are are
Speaker 1: moving away entirely from worrying about recording stuff that's on
Speaker 1: the air right now. One thing so many of them
Speaker 1: come out on DVD later or or in some of
Speaker 1: their form is a collection to catch up on an
Speaker 1: entire series now all at once, if you wanted to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think, uh, I think that's one of those
Speaker 1: dying technologies. And you know, that's a tough one because
Speaker 1: again that's that's another one that's industry that that will
Speaker 1: completely change industries, And anything that's going to completely change
Speaker 1: an industry, it's going to be a tumultuous and and
Speaker 1: and drawn out of fair It's not so thing that
Speaker 1: happens very quickly, usually unless it's catastrophic, but normally it's
Speaker 1: gonna take a while. There's gonna be a lot of resistance.
Speaker 1: We're seeing that there's a lot of resistance to it
Speaker 1: for a good reason. Again, because the economies that are
Speaker 1: involved are huge, and the considerations you have to make
Speaker 1: are enormous, and you know the fact that there's just
Speaker 1: not as much there's not as much money streaming to
Speaker 1: the to the internet as there would be going through
Speaker 1: a cable or broadcast approach. Right, It's just it's that's
Speaker 1: the truth. There's not as much money there. And if
Speaker 1: you've got a big corporation that requires a lot of
Speaker 1: money to generate the content that it makes, that raises
Speaker 1: some very tough questions where do you start making cuts?
Speaker 1: Do you do make huge cuts? And the corporate personnel
Speaker 1: do you also have to make huge cuts? And the
Speaker 1: production costs for your shows or your movies. There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about that recently, with with movie
Speaker 1: blockbusters about whether or not the blockbuster itself is perhaps
Speaker 1: an outdated concept, and perhaps it's we've we've really pushed
Speaker 1: the concept of blockbusters so far that they are having
Speaker 1: these massive, overinflated budgets, and maybe it's time to stop
Speaker 1: that and really focus on making movies a different way
Speaker 1: where it's more efficient and economical, and maybe the focus
Speaker 1: isn't so much unspectacle. That's a totally separate argument, but
Speaker 1: it does at least tangentially tie into this idea of
Speaker 1: the scheduled TV event where we don't have to be
Speaker 1: in front of our sets at a set time in
Speaker 1: place anymore, you know, we can we have a lot
Speaker 1: more flexibility to get entertainment on demand, with the exception
Speaker 1: of things like live events like sports like that. So
Speaker 1: I think that that is definitely on the bubble, you know,
Speaker 1: in a in another maybe five or ten years, uh,
Speaker 1: scheduled TV is going to be kind of a thing
Speaker 1: of the past. Um with the exception of live events. Well,
Speaker 1: I think too that that's gonna require um more people
Speaker 1: to have availability of the technology, you know, because not
Speaker 1: everyone can afford a DVR or even more broadband internet.
Speaker 1: But we're starting to see that stuff being built into
Speaker 1: the television sets themselves. So again, in five or ten years,
Speaker 1: you're going to have the average TV set sold at
Speaker 1: whatever store you go to is going to have a
Speaker 1: lot of Internet connectivity stuff built into it. Now, that
Speaker 1: doesn't solve the problem of broadband penetration. If you don't
Speaker 1: have broadband penetration, it doesn't matter how advance your TV is,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to get that content. But
Speaker 1: assuming that the broadband penetration problem has been addressed enough
Speaker 1: so that there is this transition, then I think we
Speaker 1: do see uh an end to the scheduled TV approach.
Speaker 1: And you just want your Louis, you turn your television on,
Speaker 1: you say, I want to watch this one particular program.
Speaker 1: I want to watch this one particular episode, and it
Speaker 1: pulls it up and it may be that it's a
Speaker 1: subscription based thing, and maybe it's a per episode payment thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it's gonna be free all the time,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely going to be a different model than
Speaker 1: what we're used to right now, will you know? It
Speaker 1: will no longer be like, you know, oh, it's Thursday night.
Speaker 1: This is when these my my favorite three shows. Come on,
Speaker 1: it'll be Hey, I got home, it's time to watch
Speaker 1: my favorite show. Okay, So and I think that's Let
Speaker 1: me look and did I miss anything on my list? No,
Speaker 1: that's all the things I have on my list. Not
Speaker 1: that not to suggest that that's the only outdated technology
Speaker 1: we have that we rely on on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis. Well, if people have their you know, a
Speaker 1: favorite outdated technology that they didn't think made our lists
Speaker 1: for good reason, then they should write us and let
Speaker 1: us know. I mean, there's plenty of other stuff we
Speaker 1: can talk about, like like cold powered power plants, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, right where we could say, look, there
Speaker 1: are alternatives that we could look into that maybe more
Speaker 1: environmentally friendly. But even so, these have their own sets
Speaker 1: of restrictions and problems. Um, but yeah, you could argue
Speaker 1: that saying like, hey, look at the state of the world.
Speaker 1: Isn't isn't like anything that burns fossil fuels isn't that outdated?
Speaker 1: And I would agree with you in the sense that
Speaker 1: I think we really need to move to things that
Speaker 1: aren't going to be as as dangerous to the environment.
Speaker 1: But the reality of the situation is a bit more
Speaker 1: complex than just saying, hey, this is an old way
Speaker 1: of doing things. And that wraps up that classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for current or even future episodes
Speaker 1: of tech stuff, why not get in touch with me.
Speaker 1: Send me an email. That's tech stuff at how stuff
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