It IS obsolescence, when altho' you have all the equipment necessary, using it on a newer computer is sometimes impossible because the new OS will not provide for nor allow drivers for that "old" equipment.
Everything works, technically, in the sense that it isn't broken, but there's no driver available on your computer/system.
Might as well keep a working example of the entire computer, peripherals AND software, just in case you might want to use the older stuff sometime.
The movement is inexorable...before long, USB and Firewire will be obsoleted. What next?
I had an external Yamaha CD-RW drive that performed admirable service with my PowerMac G3.
I gave the G3 to a granddaughter when I got my G4.
Heck, the G4 has a CD-RW and DVD-R drive built in. What do I need the one exterior unit for, right?
Then I find out a number of the old CDs I had used in the old machine are not recognized by my newer reader/writer!
Don't even show up on the desktop (are not "mounted.")
Someone said it might be the color of the outer protective layer on the disc, vs. the sensitivity of the newer drive.
Perhaps the two are not compatible.
Holy Mackerel!
I thought a CD was a CD, and it was DVDs that were messed up. Now it's who made your CD and the color of the plastic protective layer?
Few things are as frustrating as computers and their equipment.
keith whaley
graywolf wrote:
The usual doom and gloom. If I had some archives that HAD to be readable. I would have the drive to read it. Simple as that.
I have a pile of 3.5inch disks, so I also have a 3.5inch drive in my computer. If I had a pile of 8inch floppies (there never was no 10inchers, which tells you most of what you need to know about the author), I would have an old 8 inch drive available even if I had to keep one in storage for the past 20 years.
Just as I would have a microfiche reader if I had a lot of data on microfiche.
The problem he talks about is stupidity, not obsolescence.
OTOH, when I needed old finacial records (from 2 years ago) I found that the direct copies on CD-R were not readable. Backups with an opsolete backup software on the same brand CD-R's burned on the same drive, were. If I did not have that old backup software on hand I would have been UTC.
