Press F6 to install SCSI/storage drivers from floppy.
the fact that I don't ever have to move a CRT monitor ever again.
Networking with a BNC daisy chain because we (as high school students) were too poor to afford a router.
"hey guys the network isnt working, who's down? Oh wait, we forgot the terminator on the end."
Or even worse, trying to play games via serial link. I have fond memories of Blood 2 and StarCraft. But Quake 2 never supported it for some reason. Made me so angry.
My list:
IRQs, addresses, and resource conflicts. Even in the PNP days this was a pain in the rear.
Master/slave jumpers on HDs. A minor thing that won't be missed at all.
SCSI for reliable burning and ripping. Yes, I blew hundreds of bucks on SCSI cards and drives, dealt with termination and addresses. All that sort of thing. I ended up giving it all away because my $30 SATA drive basically kicked it's ass in every conceivable way. SCSI still has it's place, but home PCs isn't it anymore.
Pop the windows 7 dvd into the drive and plug in a 4GB+ thumb drive. Drag and drop the content from the win7 cd onto the the thumb drive. Insert thumb drive onto any computer and boot from USB.Good riddance to Zip-Disks and Jaz-Disks. Very nearly goodbye to removable media - digital distribution will be the future I think, in time. Scratching my head on how I'd install an OS without a DVD drive though.
AT cases. Expensive cases that came with their own power supplies (which, if they weren't junk initially, proved to be junk in a couple years time!). "Turbo" buttons that had LED displays that had to be programmed with jumpers.
Connor/Maxtor/Micropolis hard drives (hurry up WD, die already!). Anything made by Plextor (buggy and overhyped!) or Iomega (Zip = junk!). Parallel port-anything (especially scanners!)!
On the DOS side...memory managers (like QEMM, himem.sys, etc., that allowed you to access the "full" 16mb!).
....
OH YEAH, MIDI. Thank god for real music. Although, I have to admit, a part of me does miss MIDI.
I was working on a system and I got to thinking about how working on computers have changed. And realized that there are a lot of things that the average user has no clue about that we don't have to deal with these days. And that being a really good thing.
My list:
IRQs, addresses, and resource conflicts. Even in the PNP days this was a pain in the rear.
Master/slave jumpers on HDs. A minor thing that won't be missed at all.
Five pages of jumper settings. Motherboards automatically know what multiplier to apply, and what voltage. If you want to override it, you have a whole list of voltages in itty bitty increments and can change the voltage on damned near everything. Today "the jumper" just clears CMOS. And that's pretty much it.
Dialup modems. Okay, this one's not dead, but out of mainstream. Getting the modem/com port/DNS settings all setup and working was the hardest part of getting on the internet. Plugging in a USB or ethernet cable is so much easier. Just clicking on a thing and telling it to connect to the wireless even forgoes that step.
While talking about networking, NICs. Pretty much all MBs have them on board and they're good eliminating the need for them in almost all cases.
Piss-poor onboard audio. Yes, dedicated sound cards are still blowing onboard audio out of the water. But these days onboard audio is actually decent and in many cases pretty good.
SCSI for reliable burning and ripping. Yes, I blew hundreds of bucks on SCSI cards and drives, dealt with termination and addresses. All that sort of thing. I ended up giving it all away because my $30 SATA drive basically kicked it's ass in every conceivable way. SCSI still has it's place, but home PCs isn't it anymore.
What are your things that you won't shed a tear for?
Haha you just reminded me of playing Warcraft 2 (non Battle.net edition with my friend) manually connecting to each others computers over 28.8... Put in his phone number and all the other information, call each other "OK YOU READY?"... he sets his computer up to receive the call and my computer dials him... we start playing. Then you have no idea how many times half way through he drops out and I get a call ten seconds later "MY MOM PICKED UP THE PHONE WHILE I WAS PLAYING!" hahah. Those were the good old days. I don't think that game even had in-game chat so we would have to talk about the game afterwards.
I absolutely agree with this. I build my bro in law a computer a few weeks back but he wanted to reuse his old HP case. I had it all built then realized that the case actually had a "standard connector" that couldn't be broken up to correctly place in the motherboard. I just kind of plugged it in as best I could which ended up only being able to plug in 4 pins. I lucked out that those 4 pins that happened to able to plug in were the power and reset button.One thing that has always bothered me and still does, is that there's no standard connector for case front-panel connections. USB has an industry-standard connector, so why not the front panel connection? Every motherboard has it in a different layout, but thankfully most (if not all) cases have individual connectors.
Honestly, I was never bothered by jumpers and such, I always liked that part of setting up the hardware. One thing that has always bothered me and still does, is that there's no standard connector for case front-panel connections. USB has an industry-standard connector, so why not the front panel connection? Every motherboard has it in a different layout, but thankfully most (if not all) cases have individual connectors.
autoexec.bat and config.sys. I don't miss those files.
Command lines (they have their place, but i HATED when I had to use them separate from the GUI)
Windows 95/98se/me and Windows XP.
PATA cables.
Honestly, I was never bothered by jumpers and such, I always liked that part of setting up the hardware. One thing that has always bothered me and still does, is that there's no standard connector for case front-panel connections. USB has an industry-standard connector, so why not the front panel connection? Every motherboard has it in a different layout, but thankfully most (if not all) cases have individual connectors.