Is There Any Reason To Keep Old Software?
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
Storage is so cheap these days that I don't bother to throw away stuff. Just file it somewhere. I never find it when I need it but that's OK, I always find it the next day :laugh:
Mircea
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
I'm not a hoarder or a nostalgic kind of guy. Scrap and Recycle all that crap. There's no value in any of that; technology does not age well. Schools use free stuff or educational products. And amateurs also free code tools and languages.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
I've been getting back into old systems; Z80, want to do 8085 or 8086, 8051, etc.. I'm a book lover, would love to know what you have. As far as software I don't know if I could use it or not. Would be more than willing to pay postage and incidentals.
Give me coffee to change the things I can and wine for those I can not! PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - An updated version available! JaxCoder.com Latest Article: Simon Says, A Child's Game
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Storage is so cheap these days that I don't bother to throw away stuff. Just file it somewhere. I never find it when I need it but that's OK, I always find it the next day :laugh:
Mircea
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I've been getting back into old systems; Z80, want to do 8085 or 8086, 8051, etc.. I'm a book lover, would love to know what you have. As far as software I don't know if I could use it or not. Would be more than willing to pay postage and incidentals.
Give me coffee to change the things I can and wine for those I can not! PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - An updated version available! JaxCoder.com Latest Article: Simon Says, A Child's Game
I'll make a note of that, Mike. At the moment, I'm staring at VS 2008 Standard edition and VS 2010 Professional edition (Academic) taking up space on my shelf, but there's a ton more. When I get it all into a list, I'll put it up here, or contact you if you have email enabled.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Storage is so cheap these days that I don't bother to throw away stuff. Just file it somewhere. I never find it when I need it but that's OK, I always find it the next day :laugh:
Mircea
There is no such thing as cheap storage. This is physical product, not software images. I have an entire room that I cannot traverse on foot because of the piles of books, papers and CDs. Oh, and there's a few guns in there, too, along with a bunch of ammo. I have a 45' shipping container sitting in the middle of a 20 acre parcel of land filled to the brim with "stuff" that I can't even get to. I had to bury the doors with my tractor to keep the tweakers from breaking into it when I'm away. Now I have to hide my tractor to keep them from stealing it. In my back yard, I have a 10' x 10' shed full of containers of books - mostly computer related. This has got to end, but I don't want to trash anything any of my friends here can use. It's a quandry...
Will Rogers never met me.
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
For a long time, i had a Visual C++ installer CD, the 16-bit version. Must be still at home.
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There is no such thing as cheap storage. This is physical product, not software images. I have an entire room that I cannot traverse on foot because of the piles of books, papers and CDs. Oh, and there's a few guns in there, too, along with a bunch of ammo. I have a 45' shipping container sitting in the middle of a 20 acre parcel of land filled to the brim with "stuff" that I can't even get to. I had to bury the doors with my tractor to keep the tweakers from breaking into it when I'm away. Now I have to hide my tractor to keep them from stealing it. In my back yard, I have a 10' x 10' shed full of containers of books - mostly computer related. This has got to end, but I don't want to trash anything any of my friends here can use. It's a quandry...
Will Rogers never met me.
I see! Your problem is orders of magnitude larger than mine. :omg: For CD's I made them all ISO images and put them on a NAS. I have 16TB available so I could store a bit more than 20000 CD's and I've never had anywhere near that number. Floppies and zip disks (remember those?) had the same fate. Good thing I did it before my zip drive died. Most documents have also been scanned as well as some books that I was particularly attached to. If you make a list of what you have, count me among those interested. Good luck!
Mircea
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For a long time, i had a Visual C++ installer CD, the 16-bit version. Must be still at home.
Somewhere around here, I think I still have Visual C++ 1.2. Or was it 1.4? I don't remember, but I still have the Scribble tutorial book that came with it. What a useless scrap of paper... When MS discovered that they have no talent for writing technical manuals, instead of hiring people who can write, they just quit providing documentation. I despise them for that, and always will. A light went out in the Universe when printed knowledge ceased to exist, and MS started it.
Will Rogers never met me.
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I see! Your problem is orders of magnitude larger than mine. :omg: For CD's I made them all ISO images and put them on a NAS. I have 16TB available so I could store a bit more than 20000 CD's and I've never had anywhere near that number. Floppies and zip disks (remember those?) had the same fate. Good thing I did it before my zip drive died. Most documents have also been scanned as well as some books that I was particularly attached to. If you make a list of what you have, count me among those interested. Good luck!
Mircea
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
If you make a list of what you have, count me among those interested. Good luck!
I'll put you on the list, Mircea. This won't be soon, but it's something I have to do! I wonder if my copy of ProLog for DOS will run on Windows 11? AI is starting to look big!
Will Rogers never met me.
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
Roger -- the honest answer you may be seeking is that you're hoarding junk. Sticking to an area I know, consider compilers, IDEs, associated software, and topical books. Relatively few people are using out-of-support software, and if they are, they already have what they need. If they don't, how are you going to find them? If you want to try, catalog part of the materials, and post on Facebook Marketplace -- there's a buy-it-for-free (can't recall what the name is). List lots of materials and give it away. If after a month, there's no takers, it's junk. Recycle books, CDs/DVDs go in the landfill (sadly). If you still have floppy disks? They fizzle after 10 years-ish, so they are probably not readable, assuming you can find someone with a working floppy drive. There are other online avenues to give things away, but FB has an active market, so it came to mind. Regarding your buried container -- why don't you unblock the entrance and let folks steal what they want? It saves you a lot of hassle, and it's doing what you want -- giving it to someone who wants it. About 15 years ago I went on a cleaning binge of computer junk. I had shelves of books, containers of CDs/DVDs, and boxes of old parts. In my binge I wiped out a quarter of the hoard, things I knew was never gonna be useful again. Probably only a quarter was actually useful, half was questionable, but it was a start. I do this every 2 or 3 years. It's taken numerous iterations, but the clutter is greatly reduced. Although I see I have C# 2008, ASP.NET v2, and WordPress v2 books on my shelf, so it's time to make another stab at it ...
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Somewhere around here, I think I still have Visual C++ 1.2. Or was it 1.4? I don't remember, but I still have the Scribble tutorial book that came with it. What a useless scrap of paper... When MS discovered that they have no talent for writing technical manuals, instead of hiring people who can write, they just quit providing documentation. I despise them for that, and always will. A light went out in the Universe when printed knowledge ceased to exist, and MS started it.
Will Rogers never met me.
Roger Wright wrote:
When MS discovered that they have no talent for writing technical manuals, instead of hiring people who can write, they just quit providing documentation.
Well, the first thing that happened was that the users stopped reading the documentation. Old memory: I was working in an office landscape then, and heard the guy in the cubicle across the walkway receive a phone call - he was a support guy for the Fortran compiler (it is that long ago!). Obviously I could hear only one side of the conversation- It went like this: Yes, what is your problem? I understand ... Do you have a Fortran manual at hand? Could you open it on page 147? Good. Will you read out to me the first paragraph on that page? Oh sure, that's what we are here for, to help you with your problems. Have a good day! The fun thing is that this support man never picked up his own Fortran manual to find the right page; he took it all from memory. So all companies stopped writing manuals, more or less. (Some environments never had any - I refuse to call *nix man pages 'technical manuals'). Those companies providing 'something' on paper should be ashamed for calling it 'documentation'. More than 30 years ago, I saved in my scrapbook a comic drawing of a totally broken down man, weeping at the psychiatrists desk. The psychiatrist tries to comfort him: "Having been diagnosed as a dyslectic doesn't mean that you have to give up a writing profession - you can still make a great career in computer documentation!" Practically speaking, no companies provide good documentation, and hasn't done so for several decades. If you ask for manuals, textbooks, tutorials, they say that they leave that kind of stuff to independent writers and publishing houses. But even those writers usually deliver mediocre quality. One part of it is the readers' expectations: I buy several books that have a very high rating and lots of recommendations on Amazon and other sites, and when I get the book, it proves to be a mess, poorly organized, terribly useless examples, extremely wordy with lots of unnecessary repetitions yet missing essential information, usually with a useless index (sometimes not updated from the previous edition, so the references are all wrong!) I never had the impression that MS documentation is (/was) any worse than the others. They are all that bad!
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
One possibility is to establish build your own computer (software) museum :-) The only remaining issue is that nowadays, noone really cares for history, computer guys even less than the man in the street. Maybe you can get a journalist to write a story for your local (web) newspaper. Maybe a few people will read past the story of the headline, but very few (if any at all) will come to see your museum. If anyone comes, they will walk one short round with a blank face, and leave the place without a single question. Maybe they ask if there is a place where they can buy a cup of coffee or a coke. It really doesn't make a difference if you establish that museum or not: In either cases, people have no real interest in it. So why bother. It is the same with your old photo albums, your library, your recipe collection, your Super-8 and VHS movies from when your kids (/grandkids) where little: The only person caring for it is yourself. When your heirs come to clean up after you, they'll throw all of it in the garbage. Even childhood movies of themselves: How many years (/decades) have passed since you last watched old family movies with them? When you realize that you will never yourself ever take something old stuff into use, then you can be assured that noone else will care for it, either.
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
I have a saying. Nostalgia is a prison if you choose to live there. Thanksgiving (USA) week 2008 a fire started in a home two doors down from us. The fire damaged seven homes including the back half of mine. Turns out those fiberglass shower remodels are very flammable. My office shared a common wall with the bathroom and most of my computer documentation, books, magazines, and physical software was destroyed. I had been a bit of a hoarder regarding computer stuff. After the fire I ended up throwing away a lot of PC XT/AT clone boards and things that I salvaged from customer upgrades over the years. Basically, I started fresh moving forward. But there are some things that I really do wish I could find a dozen years after the fact. It’s almost all documentation and some software. I had user guides and service guides for older equipment that I have seen people ask in vintage computer forums. I had never digitized them and now can’t. This isn’t older versions of current items, but unique items when CP/M, Flex and OS/9 were popular, in the late 70’s and very early 80’s. There was a lot of history there. I had a collection of manuals from the late 80’s and 90’s for PC multi-function cards and motherboards. I see retro computer channels that could have used that information. The other stuff I really haven’t missed or really would have been able to do anything with today. One recuring thought I do have is that I had a Motorola/Hitachi 6809 based PC from Canon. Same Canon that makes cameras, copiers, calculators, etc. I would have liked to see if I could have gotten OS9 or Flex running on it. All I really need is the memory map of the computer to answer the question, but I haven’t found any documentation. I keep looking.
Rich Shealer
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
Not unless you have an "old" computer to go with it. I still have my Atari. And Genesis. And ...
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
I often wish I had kept old copies of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C, but it's not like I'd use them today. I do have my copies of Turbo BASIC and PFS:First Choice -- the manuals on a shelf behind me and the content of the 5.25" floppies copied to hard drive. Turbo BASIC was still functional under Win 7 (though the graphics package didn't work), but not under Win 10 :( . There was an abandonware site I think I uploaded them to a few years back. Some other old disks (3.5") I have contain "fonts" and such -- Star Trek fonts in particular. I think I must still have my Microsoft Musical Instruments CD around here somewhere. I must have discarded the various "After Dark" versions I had as well.
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
As soon as you discard it, you will need something in there. Someone's law also says that it will not be available anywhere else. I resurrected an old mothballed Dell server, running ESXi, to test Chris's AI and Blue Iris surveillance software. Put a W10 VM and a Linux VM for same. Been running for several months. Yesterday, iDRAC complained about a drive failure. All drives (10) are mirrored with a hardware RAID (5 mirrors). Only one is in use. Guess which one failed? :sigh: So, I VPN'd in to that LAN and tried to log into the iDRAC. Browsers wouldn't connect due to outdated SSL stuff. Went to my hidden cabinet-of-shame archive, copied and fired up an old W7 VM, logged in with IE, got the size of the hard drive that had failed, and ordered a replacement. All from 50 miles away. Hoping the survivor lasts until next week. I had come close to trashing the old drive containing the archive of VM's and assorted software. I just increased the size of the drives in my trueNAS system to avoid throwing anything away. Go ahead, trash stuff. Murphy is out there .............................................................waiting.
>64 Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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Mircea Neacsu wrote:
If you make a list of what you have, count me among those interested. Good luck!
I'll put you on the list, Mircea. This won't be soon, but it's something I have to do! I wonder if my copy of ProLog for DOS will run on Windows 11? AI is starting to look big!
Will Rogers never met me.
Roger Wright wrote:
ProLog for DOS
I remember this from my first year in the college. We had to create a maze and save the Little Mermaid using a predicate language. I feel old now.
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I have mountains of stuff, lots of it is software like old versions of Visual Studio and older IDEs, along with books for learning a number of long obsolete tools, like MFC and TurboPascal. Many years ago, when it was impossible to afford any MS product on a normal income, a member here generously sent me a version of VS that I could never otherwise purchase, and got me up and running again. I would hate to throw this stuff away and later learn that there was someone here who could really use it, either to learn, or to support an older product. But I have no idea how to find anyone who might need what I'm about to toss. Can someone make a suggestion? I'm sure there are others here in my same predicament.
Will Rogers never met me.
Kepp in mind that many of those old CDs will not be readable at all. They don't age well. My copy of VS 2012 left me that way.
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