Now, the latest in flight simulation is the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, which is great fun to fly, and works well on any suitably powerful pc.If this happens because the hero helps people who are ungrateful, it can be a case of All of the Other Reindeer or The Farmer and the Viper. I never revealed the secrets to anybody, but I have really had a great time since then. That gave me a window into all sorts of Microsoft software.
The fascinating thing about all of this is that Microsoft did not change their code scrambler after this adventure. I called the number he had given me, and it was a direct line to him. (There was even an “easter egg” buried deep in it that said, “Bill Gates is a nerd.”) Being good at cryptanalysis, and by making some assumptions, I was able to decrypt the code scrambler. He laughed and said, “Good luck…but on the very slight chance that you do, at least give me a chance to discuss it with you before you do anything else.” He then provided a direct phone number to reach him.Įssentially all my spare time for the next six months was devoted to analyzing over 64,000 lines of encrypted code. He said, “I appreciate your buying the Flight Simulator, but if I give you that information, you might be able to psych out our code scrambler.” Becoming madder by the minute, I said, “I will psych-out your code scrambler, and when I do, you may wish you had given me the penny-ante memory address…all I want to do is use a product which I have legitimately paid for.” They were recalcitrant, but the service rep said, “I am not allowed to give out that information, but Bill is working the help desk today, he might give you that information.” Bill Gates came on the the phone. I called the Microsoft Help Desk and asked for help. I discovered, however, that the problem was a memory address, which (if I could find the address) would solve the incompatibility problem.
I owned a pc clone (but not IBM) and bought the Flight Simulator.
It is quite credible that the source code could have been leaked.īack in the 1980’s, the IBM pc was the gold standard for pc’s, and the Microsoft Flight Simulator was the standard of compatibility with an IBM pc. Then XP being following fairly closely too didn’t help.ĮDIT – this was meant to be a reply to the quoted post, and I messed it up. The disadvantage was being released relatively close to NT 4.
Server side had a more of an advantage with Active Directory (kindly borrowing some things from Novell). I believe the main advantage 2k Workstation had over NT 4 was USB support.
There were other changes that caused software compatibility issues with Windows 3/3.1 apps which didn’t help either.
Windows ME suffered partially because they implemented changes to driver model – if I’m remembering correctly it was suppose to be something to start getting the device makers ready for the move to the NT kernel. … 2k wasn’t all that popular with businesses either.
Well yes, ME was pretty universally though to be bad.īut I don’t think it was much worse than the original-release 95… I’m fairly sure I have some old software manuals around here with a listing of supported Windows versions that goes like “3.11, 95 OSR2, 98, 98SE, NT 3.51, NT 4, XP, Server 2003” Good luck to us all! I will be following developments closely in Woody’s columns and right here in the Lounge. As I have written before, it’s well worth the price of admission! I was able to create this option for myself thanks in no small part to the tips and advice I found here on AW. But my other system does have this capability. One of my systems is so old, the Bios does not offer booting from USB, and I searched the HP site in vain for a Bios update, as they no longer support my Compaq clunker. I can make the jump whenever I need to, at a moment’s notice. FF, Libre Office and Foxit Reader are also installed and operational, so I have the core of what I need and I am good to go. JHC! Whatever the consequences for my two Win7 systems, as of this week, I not only have Linux Mint 19.3 up and running from a bootable 1½-inch long 128GB SanDisk stick, I have already adapted my key files (created under Windows) to the constrained Linux font selection (I did import the MS font set, but only some of them transferred successfully).