The “legacy interface” – its days are numbered
For my age, I do pretty well with a computer. But I’m very bad at learning something new, and I usually hate doing so. Once I’m “interfacing” with a system, it becomes almost automatic and easy.
That’s when they change it up.
It’s always in the name of progress. “Oh, this will be so much better for you,” they say. “Take your medicine, honey.” And yet it very often is much worse after they’ve made their “improvements.” Don’t get me started on every single kind of email I use, for example, and the lousy changes they keep making.
But the thing that especially bugs me is that the systems that do this pretend to give you options. But it’s only for a short while that you get to opt out of the new and use the “classic” version you prefer. And then, after a few weeks or months, down the rabbit hole that classic goes.
I’m posting about this today not because anything special has happened along those lines, but because this at Ann Althouse’s gave me a chuckle:
I’d be interested in seeing a science fiction movie called “The Legacy Interface Will Still Be Optionally Available.” You’d easily know that this would be some dystopia where normal life had been nightmarishly disrupted. In “The Matrix,” the legacy interface is optionally available. You take a pill to opt out of the new world that had become the default for all users.
And I bet towards the end of the film, the plot would entail the erasing of the legacy option entirely, and the person’s frantic efforts – successful? unsuccessful? – to find the magic wormhole to access it again.
Not to worry. Pretty sure someone will write a simulation for it.
(Isn’t that what happened with Windows 10 when it first came out?)
It may even come bundled.
Windows 8 started the trend, and Win10 continued it: Microsoft spent the better part of 25 years getting people to use the Start button to find their applications. Windows 8 wanted you to treat your device as a tablet. Which is OK if you have a tablet, but no so good if you have 40″ TV that isn’t touch sensitive.
Fortunately, Open Shell will give you options: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
YAHOO is a prime example of what you speak of. Another email change to “make if better” and oh by the way if you pay us money we will make your email work.
Heh. I remarked the other day that Facebook’s new interface is just what one expects from a software upgrade: slower, less convenient, and flaky.
Yep. I’m moving to Win10 tomorrow when the disk arrives, and I intend on using the OpenShell I R A Darth Aggie suggested.
The Win10 menu is abysmal, but I can’t Win7 forever.
Mac – I don’t use Facebook, because, reasons; but in the context of the OS discussion: is your nom a product recommendation or just a coincidence?
Human civilization is in truth, the legacy system that is being rebooted or revamped. Not everyone is gonna like what this entails in the coming years.
Heh. I remarked the other day that Facebook’s new interface is just what one expects from a software upgrade: slower, less convenient, and flaky.
Mac: Plus it spies on you more.
(I don’t know anything specific about Facebook, but that’s my general impression of software upgrades.)
The last time I had the slightest notion of how to do anything was Win 98. I actually did understand a lot of DOS. But now? Forget it. Their view is “Trust us. We know what you want.”
Sorta on-topic. If you miss the computer games of yore and happen to have some Covid time on your hands, may I suggest GOG:
“Great Old Games” or “Good Old Games” (I guess)
https://www.gog.com
GOG sells mostly old games, though some new ones, for $5-$20. The games have been tweaked so the copy-protection has been removed and the games run properly on modern machines/OSes. You own the game outright, not at the behest of some cloud server.
I’ve been playing Sid Meier’s “Alpha Centauri,” a classic 4X game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate), which some still consider one of the top turn-based strategy games around. It’s like Sid’s “Civilization” series but in a science-fiction world.
I’ve also been taking another shot at “Myst” but this time with a full cheatsheet I downloaded from the net. I want to appreciate “Myst” for its artistry like a book or movie. The puzzles are ridiculous. I can see why I gave up on it back in the day, especially with the clunky, slow CD-ROM players then. If I want to beat my head against a wall trying to get the computer to do something, I’ll just get back to programming.
I’m still on Windows 7 and I don’t know what I’m going to do when that pond dries up.
The new processors already won’t work with W7 and gradually the latest software will stop working too. Not to mention the malware vulnerabilities.
The purist approach would be to shift to Linux, but I have never warmed to Linux or Unix and there’s a ton of software which doesn’t run there. The Mac OS has become a bizarre shell on top of BSD Unix with a 35% boutique premium over Windows machines.
I have resigned feeling I’ll probably bite the bullet and end up on Windows 10.
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They’ve condemned the pier, Jack. You’ll be living under the booted foot of the lifeguard state.
–John Milius, “Big Wednesday” @ 36:30
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The best film based on surfing ever made. Milius was one of the original surfers in 1950s California. He also came up as a film screenwriter/director with Lucas, Spielberg and those guys. The John Goodman character in “The Big Lebowski” is based on Milius.
Aw, huxley, if I can do Myst, you can. I’m not very good at games and puzzles but I took to Myst because of its aesthetic appeal. I don’t recall having many hints but it was a long time ago now. The last installment in the Myst series, though, URU: I would have bailed on it a long time ago if good hints weren’t available online. I got it when it came out, at least ten years ago I guess, and didn’t get very far before deciding I just didn’t have time for it. Took it up again recently.
For something completely I mean completely different, try Kentucky Route Zero. Available from Steam at a modest price.
Aesop Fan: heh…just a coincidence. Though I was a Macintosh fan when the Microsoft competitor was Windows 3, which I deeply loathed. I bailed on Apple, though, when they got worse during the Jobs exile period and Windows got better. Never really looked back.
huxley on May 27, 2020 at 8:10 pm said:
Heh. I remarked the other day that Facebook’s new interface is just what one expects from a software upgrade: slower, less convenient, and flaky.
Mac: Plus it spies on you more.
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Number-One-Son is looking at this for the oldest grandson, who just did a robotics project in HS and got 300 points for a 200-point assignment.
(Ahem — little bit of gran-bragging there)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hellochatterbox/chatterbox-the-smart-speaker-that-kids-build-and-p?ref=profile_saved_projects_ended
It only spies if you physically punch a button, and has other safeguards.
Looks like fun to build.
AesopSpouse claims to have built a crystal radio set back in the Dark Ages of RadioShack.
Mac on May 27, 2020 at 11:30 pm said:
Aw, huxley, if I can do Myst, you can. I’m not very good at games and puzzles but I took to Myst because of its aesthetic appeal.
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We took a very hands-off approach to the kids and video games: nothing R-rated, minimize mindless violence, and buy it yourself. Best decision we ever made.
I did give in and get Spyro one time just because I liked it the little dragon.
Anyway, I never watched or played (other things to do, and it kept me out of disputes over whose turn etc), but I used to sit and watch them play Myst and Riven for the aesthetics, and also they had the only gaming music track that I could stand to listen to interminably.
I still remember the first time I called somebody to come do a chore and he replied, “I have to die first.”
Aw, huxley, if I can do Myst, you can.
Mac: Well, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Mac! Here’s the first paragraph of a Myst cheatsheet:
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Walk around the island until you find a note on the ground to Catherine. After reading the note, go around counting all the Marker Switches and putting them to the “on” position (lever up). Go to the fore chamber beside the dock and put the number of Marker Switches in the panel beside the stairway. Then press the button by the pool. You should get a message from Atrus.
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(Throws hands up.) That seems so arbitrary. How are you supposed to figure that out, especially since there are quite a few places on the island, each with its own set of tricks? Plus when you start playing, it takes a while just to get the mechanics down of moving around the island. (So much worse in the slow CD-ROM days.)
Yesterday I spent three hours debugging some code in which the names required hyphens under some circumstances and underscores in others and I had gotten too bleary to tell the difference. If I want arbitrary frustration, I’ll stick to programming.
Another recommendation for GOG.COM here. They’ve recently released an updated, extended version of one of my favorite DOS games, Master of Magic. I had already bought the basic game from them years ago and the expansion was like three bucks.
I have a pirated version of Excel 97, a program more than 20 years old. It still works in Windows 10, and it works like a charm.
I keep that version carefully stored, and cross my fingers hoping that no windows update will break it in the future.
huxley, ugh, I don’t remember it being that arbitrary, but then it was quite a few years ago now. I seem to recall periods of frustration followed by “aha!” breakthroughs.
Are you familiar with the Universal Hint System? It’s fantastic. It gives you an escalating series of hints at every step, in q&a form:
“How do I open the door?”
“You’ll need some kind of tool.”
If that doesn’t get you anywhere, the next hint might be
“Where can I get a tool?”
“Take a real close look at that table in the corner.”
And so on. Anywhere from a couple of hints to a dozen or more, depending on the puzzle, ending with the complete solution. I think this is the URL: http://uhs-hints.com/
We stayed on Win7 for a few years in order to play Age of Mythology.
As a family of 6 (with 6 family computers, including a couple quite old Win XP boxes), on our home network.
We are moving towards Steam for old games; and Voobly for AoM games over the internet with friends of sons plus sons.
But for work, and new computers, some are now on Win10, and haven’t found the secret to make AOM work (despite some YouTubes & other explanations). Plus kids got older (20+) and don’t play with parents much now.
Second son chose Win 8, and likes it – there’s ability to make it work more like he wants to make it work (more 7 than 10), but is updated from w7. Wife still on w7 at home, but at work on w10 — she’s happy staying home for work for the pandemic. Her mother and sister have Macs. So much more user friendly for most stuff, and most MS documents work ok; her next box will probably be a Mac. (Wish “prolly” would become acceptable.)
On hardware, I just replaced my graphics card with a no-fan Nvidia, plus a new “Be Quiet!” case, and a 500 GB SSD to replace the 2 TB hard drive. So much more quiet. Quiet! (For almost 40 years I’ve been working with loud computer fan & disk drive noise.) The external back up 1.5 TB drive connects to the USB port, but “every month” is more like 3 or 4 times a year.
Glad to get ride of legacy noise!
I think MS has been making a mistake changing the user interface so much, for so little benefit. Most folk rightfully dislike it — tho we might even say we “hate” it. Linux doesn’t cut it yet, tho with better MS emulators coming it might, soon.
I need to replace my hardware, which means Windows 10 (too many Windows apps that are not available on Linux). I have an offboard audio device that doesn’t have Win10 drivers. I’m equally annoyed with Microsoft for breaking the old driver and with the audio manufacturer for not updating the driver. Grrrrrrrr…..