Windows at least makes sense when you understand the reasoning.
For years websites have been warning people their OS is out of date if it detected they were running Windows 95 or Windows 98.
They did this by pulling the version and displaying the warning “if version = Windows 9*”
So it would have been super embarrassing to have a brand new OS trigger out of date warnings. Skip over Windows 9 and go straight to 10, problem solved.
That should be up to the websites to fix, not Microsoft.
This seems like a made up reason.
There’s at least one example you can look at, the Jenkins CI project had code like that (
if (name.startsWith("windows 9")) {):https://issues.jenkins.io/secure/attachment/18777/PlatformDetail
Microsoft, for all their faults, do (or at least did) take backwards compatibility very seriously, and the option of “just make devs fix it” would never fly. Here’s a story about how they added special code to Windows 95 to make SimCity’s broken code work on it:
Windows 95? No problem. Nice new 32 bit API, but it still ran old 16 bit software perfectly. Microsoft obsessed about this, spending a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here’s the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn’t working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn’t free memory right away. That’s the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95.
video drivers do this nowadays.
its part of the reason your nvidia driver is gigabytes in size (other than the bloat)
part of the reason why Nvidias drivers are larger is because theres a lot of functionality that nvidia throws onto as software rather than hardware. after kepler, nvidia moved the hardware scheduler off the gpu and into the driver. this resulted in lower power consumption, but higher cpu usage (reletive to amd). Its why AMD gpus fare better when paired with a aging cpu than Nvidia does.
this is interesting as fuck.
where can i read more about his architectural change?
i cant remember the article that mentions the archetectual change, but theres a few videos, one by Hardware Unboxed that goes over the phenomena.
I first learned of it when a user who was using an i7-3770k “upgraded” from an AMD R9-290 to a Nvidia 1070 for battlefield reasons (idr which one). the user essentially lost FPS because he was being heavily CPU bottlenecked due to the Nvidia GPU/Driver.
that explains that effort to improve gpu scheduling in windows 10 a few years ago. turns out they were just compensating for this.
ill look this video up, i love this subject but its hard to get information about it like this!
It’s absolutely not a made-up reason.
It was a way to get around the fact that Microsoft didn’t use proper version numbers for ages, and it became standard (enough) practice such that MS had to account for it if they didn’t want to break legacy support for a shitload of software that enterprises customers care about.
It’s not websites, it was about local apps.
There are a bunch of 20 year old apps designed for Windows XP which would complain that Windows 9 is too old.
Can you imagine? “Microsoft demands all websites update their code for new operating system.”
The alternative being “Why websites think your new computer is old.”
Microsoft dodged all of that by skipping a version number and the worst question they get asked is “Where did Windows 9 go?”
They even had tshirts that said “Because 7 8 9”.
Say should all you want, when the user has been using an app for 20 years and then an update breaks it they blame Microsoft not the app. Although I think a big part of it was also choosing 10 as a nice round number for their “”“final”“” os.
The “final” thing was never true though. Wholey based on an off the cuff remark by one engineer.
How many sites were checking for pre-NT windows versions at all at the time of the release of windows 10?
Enough to make Microsoft skip Windows 9. ;)
People use a ton of legacy software.
Apple’s kind of makes sense too. The removal of the home button was probably the biggest change ever made to the iPhone so they probably wanted a more impactful number/letter. Also, it was the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.
I thought it was because the number 9 was associated with suicide in some cultures.
I don’t think Microsoft is that culturally sensitive. :)
Don’t be naive. Every corpo that size has entire departments dedicated to branding and sales. It’s not about cultural sensitivity, it’s about what sells.
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I would love to say that’s true, but how many times have we seen the corporate equivalent of stepping on a rake because either a) they have no department like that or b) someone was asleep at the switch?
Comparatively they seem okay, but it’s a low bar for international megacorporations.
They would be if it meant selling more product. But I doubt that’s the reason here.
Wait until you hear about xbox skipping 1 to 359!
They did get back to try and redo it but then quit after 1!
I dont think the second generation of xbox was callled xbox 2.510412868 E+778
Nah, they just used the entire number.
That’s just an approximation though right? I doubt the number has that many zeros.
Yeah it is, the exact number is 25104128675558732292929443748812027705165520269876079766872595193901106138220937419666018009000254169376172314360982328660708071123369979853445367910653872383599704355532740937678091491429440864316046925074510134847025546014098005907965541041195496105311886173373435145517193282760847755882291690213539123479186274701519396808504940722607033001246328398800550487427999876690416973437861078185344667966871511049653888130136836199010529180056125844549488648617682915826347564148990984138067809999604687488146734837340699359838791124995957584538873616661533093253551256845056046388738129702951381151861413688922986510005440943943014699244112555755279140760492764253740250410391056421979003289600000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Thanks! I’m still surprised at the number of trailing zeros though. Is that a function of how many multiples of ten there are in the factorial?
Just looked it up
https://www.purplemath.com/modules/factzero.htm
If we take the factorial of any number larger than 5, then there will be at least one zero at the end of the number. Why? Because 5! = 1×2×3×4×5; in particular, 5! = (2×5)×(1×3×4), and (2×5) = 10. The factorial of any larger number will have more copies of 2 and 5 (as factors of larger values, like 6 and 15), so there will be even more factors of 10 in these factorials. And every factor of 10 adds a zero to the end of the factorial expansion.
Okay cool. So my guess wasn’t too far off.
It’s because 789
It’s because 9 is a registered six offender
Microsoft’s XBox versioning is even stranger.
Windows has been weird since long before the event the OP mentions though.
Normal up until 3.1, then:
- 95
- 98
- 2000
- ME
- XP
- Vista
- 7 (internally, actually 6.1)
- 8 (internally, actually 6.2)
- 8.1 (internally, actually 6.3 and therefore as significant as 7 -> 8)
Also, the hilarious alleged reason they did it. Not (just) because of the marketing boost associated with version 10, but because they specifically wanted to avoid the number 9 out of backwards compatibility concerns. Some old code would actually detect it’s running on “either 95 or 98” by doing a string comparison of the version number returned by the OS, and seeing if it started with ‘9’.
Rather than risk maybe causing some compatibility problems with an edge case in software from the early '00s, they figured “just skip it entirely”.
Ha, urgh… the string checking thing is amusing. That’s not even counting that ME was the last DOS based one, and there was NT 3.1, 3.5, and 4, then 2000 was NT 5.0… and XP and everything after that. Then internally XP was NT 5.1, 5.2, and Vista was NT 6. Windows 7? NT 6.1. Windows 8: NT 6.2. Then Windows 10? NT 10,0. Now the latest Windows 11 is uh, 23H2.
those 23H2 feature updates look like (biological) viruses to me
So it’s fitting then.
Version numbers actually existed (Windows 95 was 4.0) but nobody used them
I haven’t used windows in ages, but I do remember compatibility mode, and you could select the OS a program should be compatible with. Why couldn’t they have had Windows 9, and for apps with issues, you could run in compatibility mode for XP?
Don’t get me started on USB
That makes sense.
USB 1,2,3,4 is the standard and relates to the speeds.
USB A, B, C, Micro, Mini refers to the shape.
USB 3.0 Gen 1 and 3.1 Gen 1 and 3.2 Gen 1 are 5Gb/s, 3.1 Gen 2 and 3.2 Gen 2 are 10Gb/s and 3.2 Gen 2×2 is 20Gb/s. Then there’s Thunderbolt 3 with 40Gb/s or 10Gb/s.
USB4 can be 0.5, 10, 20, 40, 80 or 120Gb/s
Note that it is oficially “USB4” with no space
And don’t forget USB4 2.0
I wish they’d stuck to what you’re describing, it’s gone incredibly off the rails since that though
USB 3.2 Gen 2x2
But now it’s by speed instead… But there’s USB 3 and USB 4 with 20Gbps speed which are both named USB 20 Gbps…
I believe Apple just never made the 9 because that would have confused people. The 8 and the X dropped the same year due to the 10 year anniversary of iPhones so it was a special case.
Chronologically, they’d have to go back to the 9 and then the next phone would be the 11 because the X already exists, so going straight to 11 makes sense to not confuse the masses for me.
They could’ve made it iPhone Y instead, lol
Debian devs: fuck it, next version will be 13.
iPhone? Nein.
There was no Windows 4 either. Do you know why?
In some eastern Asian cultures four is considered an unlucky number, similar to 13 in western cultures. Same reason OnePlus went 3-3t-5
I literally own a CD of Windows NT 4. I have used it before on two different laptops, a long long time ago. Windows NT 4 absolutely did exist.
Windows 4 is not Windows NT 4.
Windows NT was separate from Windows.
Yes there was.
Am I the only one nostalgic for old iOS? I remember how everyone was so amazed at how iOS 6 looked
Old ios updates were significant. I don’t know when it changed, but now there is hardly a difference in versions.
Do we want huge changes every few years over minor tweaks and improvements? Like the basics of most phone OS are pretty functional and standard at this stage.
Yea android was the same, those huge changes were the result of an emerging tech that we (the population at large) hadn’t really figured out yet.
Smartphones are entering maturity so it makes sense to me that changes become smaller and move slower, any given update pushed out affects a billion people.
They can still update the OS without changing the major change number and only update the minor change and patch numbers. I just feel that they update the main number for advertising purposes instead of doing it as a telltale sign of what kind of changes are in the OS.
Selling the newness is definitely part of the marketing. Phone number goes up, ios number goes up, chip number goes up. If you are obsessed with having the newest shit, suddenly you no longer have the newest shit.
I have wondered if phone companies in general and Apple in particular might move to a two-year cycle. But given the size of Apple and the way some people get their new shit as a status symbol, moving to a 2-year phone update cycle would probably lose them literal billions.
Maybe now we’ll have the choice of phones that last longer, are supported longer.
Apple has been pretty good about this and generally end support on significant architectural changes, but if the change is a faster processor and new sensor, they ought to be able to support hardware longer without more effort
Good thing Microsoft doesn’t have a big say in that.
Sounds like OSX/macOS.
iOS 7 kinda sucked tho
I’d say Nintendo products or Street Fighter games take the crown for wacky inconsistency.
Fate anime series be like: hold my beer
Red hat Linux has managed to flame out on the cusp of v9 twice too, so maybe $4…
Apple’s done this with more than just iPhones.
Mac OS didn’t do this, but the marketing of version 10 as “OS X” set the stage for everything to come later. With other products, they did it with Final Cut Pro X and QuickTime X
iMovie also did something interesting where they went from marketing by year of release to version 10. Luckily, there was iMovie '09 and iMovie '11 before that, but no 2010 version. So limited confusion.
Samsung skipped 11-19
Big companies are doing this so they can sell their product on the Chinese market more easily. The number 9 is associated with death in China.
That’s 4, not 9. The words for death and 4 in Cantonese sound similar, I think with only a small tone difference.
Also, in a similar way, 14 is close to “must die,” and 24 is close to “easy to die”
Are we discussing Bruce Willis movies now?
Waaait, are ppl still that stupisticious?
🤣 People still believe in talking to imaginary friends with superpowers. Magic numbers are tame by comparison.
Now it talks back with GodGPT. /s (if that’s not a thing already…)
How euphoric of you.
In china, absolutely. Phone numbers, license plates, condo building floors etc. 8 is good and those fetch high price and 4 is avoided. Hell the US is still sometimes avoiding floor 13 in hotels.
When I worked at a restaurant and someone’s order came to $6.66, they would sometimes add or remove items to prevent that order total. Always made me chuckle.
I went to the US in 2013 and there were still a lot of hotels (and I think some other places but I’m not sure) that skipped the 13th floor and room number 13
I used to have a CD that skipped track 13. It went from 12 to 14. If I put it on track 13 it would have like 5 seconds of silence before going to track 14.
Interesting, I haven’t seen anything like that. I’ll have to keep a look out for missing room numbers next time I’m in a hotel.
There used to be a US highway 666. It was renumbered to 491 back in 2003 due to 666 being associated with the mark of the beast.
Kinda wish they’d went with highway 665.99 instead.
I’m not superstitious. Heck, I’m not even a little stitious.
I’m down voting you for butchering the quote.
