Modern computing has made a lot of things dis-interesting to me as well. I very much like removable storage, working with floppies, etc. Just think if the Zip drive technology had been more popular or standardized. The LS120 drives too, remember them?
But yeah, like an Amiga, IBM clones and Mac's can still boot from floppy or optical drive, but most peoples mindsets have shifted from that way of thinking. It's really only used now to save a HD or install/prep said HD. With the computing power we have today, think of how well certain programs could run if coded so that they were written entirely for a given machines architecture (machine language) and NOT a crappy OS. Oh wait - that's what dedicated consoles pretty much are. lol Going from MSDOS to Windoze the first time, couldn't help but scratch my head in amazement that, all of the sudden, we need a program to run a program?! I felt exactly the same way about GEOS for the C64. Somehow, the ST, Mac & Amiga all seemed different as they were "born" with the mouse driven interface. Really though, it *is* the same thing. Programs running programs. Supposed to make our lives easier, better - faster. HA! lol
But when it comes to "computing", perception is everything. Mainstream folks feel the need to be moving "forward" all the time, even if they're going nowhere fast. The digital music industry has already proven that. Using a floppy today, especially a measly 1.44mb one, would just screw with their perception of the computing experience. Besides all that, the format simply isn't large enough to handle all the inefficient coding going on in today's software and I agree with HammerD... just isn't practical anymore en masse.
Back in the days it was easy to program software to work on spesific computers. The programmers knew what hardware was inside the computer. and they could program games to that "standard" and it would work on 70 - 90% of the computers in the world. A short port and you would further expand it.
Today this is a whole different story.
Here:
http://www.indexoftheweb.com/Computer/Hard_Drive_Controllers.htmlIs a short list of HDD controller makers. Which is one major part of a computers motherboard setup.
If programmers of modern games should make device drivers for any modern computer part. The games would be huge and unnecessary complex. And would possibly only support a sertain component manufacturer.
And what about audio, GFX, network, motherboard drivers, +++...
In pcs early life this was their story. 500 different manufacturers and their components only worked with their own components. unless you purchased components from one of their business associates. It "may" work...
Then arrived standards like PCI which for the first time introduced plug and play (or autoconfig in amiga), and it worked, relative so to speak (in the beginning).
And of course the operating system became the gateway for games to run an any hardware. The operating system holds the device drivers. And provides the games and programmers with a standardized platform. As is the direct X, open gl, (direct 3d is a part of direct x).
And suddenly we are back to the start. Programmers have their standardized platform and do not need to worry about device drivers. They just need to make an interesting game.
So you see, it ain't so much different in Principe. Its just an evolutionary step further.
