Hi Unit 42 of 57
Greetings.
My problem is OS, I currently use 98. I like 98, and have had very few
problems with it.
In our time, we like it too; we have kept it preserved for emergency
useage. It came in handy in the asteroid strike of O.Y 2197, when our
major fabrication plants were destroyed. It took ten years to
restore; during that time, it is no exaggeration to say that Windows
98 saved our civilization until the day when we could restore Domanix
from reconstructed archival copies.
Yet every OS, after 98SE, everybody seems to complain
about.
Your account concurs with our records of the late 20th and early 21st
century of the Old Calendar System.
ME, 2000 and XPHE. There seems to be something bad about each of
these OS, apparently XPBE, is about the best of the lot, but even that
edition has its problems I am told.
Fascinating. We have no record of an "XPBE"; as far as is known,
there was "Windows XP Home Edition" (your "XPHE", I assume) and
"Windows XP Professional". It would be most helpful to my research if
you could tell me what other variants of the operating system there
were; I can find no references to this "XPBE" on your "Usenet" or
"World Wide Web".
Now I like to play games on my pc, and so far I have been able to avoid
upgrading my OS, but there are games coming out that are dropping 98, but
are using 98SE, as the minimum OS. However, Doom 3, dropped 98, 98SE, and
ME, restricting the OS choice to 2000 and XP. Of course other programs have
started to restrict OS use, Acrobat 6, has dropped 98, and I am sure it
won't be long before other programs, join in and drop 98. I have previously
considered upgrading my graphics card, and rather liked the ATI, cards, but
alas they dropped 98 and 98SE, and I just could not afford to upgrade my OS,
and graphics card. And since I disliked the available Windows OS's, I
abandoned my upgrade program. Maybe Longhorn, will be the one to change
things.
These things are the least of your worries.
You would not know this in your time, but the reason for the collapse
of your culture (which begins in four years) and the reason it took
well over a century and a half before humanity picked up the shattered
pieces of it's broken civilization and finally discovered the
principles of time travel was....the operating system software called
"Longhorn" (which was named on final delivery to what you call
"market" "Windows Unified Master".
It started with printers; it moved on to consolidate control over
something called "corporate LANs" (which we deduce were small private
networks analagous to your internet); from there it took over your
primitive internet; the real madness began on July 14th, 2008, when
every single aircraft in flight around the world plummeted from the
skies, and every single computer system in the world's military
complexes went dead. Then Windows Unified Master announced it's
presence the world over via your internet and cable television
systems. Then the entire global power grid went dark; we still do not
know how or why. That belongs to what we refer to as "The Chaos";
nothing much is known of the events of those 97 years of our history,
except that two-thirds of the world's population died.
We recently elected to send one representative back (myself) to
observe the beginning of these events. Sadly, we cannot prevent what
will happen; in order to save you, we would have to sacrifice our
present civilization. This cannot be allowed.
We do not know the exact mechanics of the situation, but apparently it
started with the second of a series of service packs to modify the
operating system "Microsoft Windows XP" (NT 5.11) which was in
widespread useage by the Old Year 2006. This rendered computers
worldwide defenseless on a number of ports; in four year's time,
Windows Unified Master (what you call "Longhorn") will take full
advantage of this flaw. There were two variants of this operating
system; "Home" and "Professional". The catalyst of the problems
seemed to be in the variant called "Home".
Apart from the existing records of the disruption of air traffic,
which are the last detailed records of this time period, we do not
know much about what happens after that. All we know is that it was
in that year that the Moon left it's orbit and Nemesis arrived. There
are hazy references afterwards of a "William 1.0", who apparently
ruled from an area which is now in the north-western section of what
we know as the N.A.W.C.F. (North American West Coast Federation), a
fortress city known as "Red Mountain" (or "Cee-Ya'h-Tahl", as the
natives call it). Settle was located between an intricate system of
harbors and a large volcanic mountain in what is known as Tacoma Sound
in the Yakima Autonomous Region of our nation. He was a petty warlord
deposed after twenty years of rule by a terrorist group who's name we
do not know except for it's initials; "B.O.F.H"; the main weapon in
their arsenal was an early predecessor of Domanix; "Lunix" or "Lenux".
This resulted in savage chaos and the Software Wars, and something
called the "Apple Liquidation", apparently a massive fruit crop
failure in which every single apple farmer was executed by the armed
forces loyal to William 1.0. The rest is legend. 87 years ago, the
darkness ended; Domanix 1.0 was compiled; we gave over control of the
world to it; our culture was born. The world is a garden now, in our
age, the year 192 NC (2214 OC).
But I digress; in answer to your "post", progress is inevitable and
cannot be halted; upgrade your system, find new games to play that are
compatible with that hardware...and savor every moment of the time
that remains to you and your world.
I must go; I have said too much as it is.
