The Old New Thing

October 5, 2005 - The Old New Thing

My history of time is briefer than yours

October 5, 2005 Oct 5, 2005 10/5/05
Raymond Chen
In 1999, Eric Schulman published A Briefer History of Time, based upon his previous effort to capture the history of the universe in 200 words. The book takes the initial 200-word summary and expands upon each phrase, surreptitiously teaching you some science among the jokes. (You can even watch a video.) And then this Hawking guy shows ...

Running old programs in a virtual machine doesn’t necessarily create a good user experience

October 5, 2005 Oct 5, 2005 10/5/05
Raymond Chen
Many people suggest solving the backwards compatibility problem by merely running old programs in a virtual machine. This only solves part of the problem. Sure, you can take a recalcitrant program and run it in a virtual machine, with its own display, its own hard drive, its own keyboard, etc. But there are very few types of programs (games ...