[HCARC] Win 8

[Charley & Peggy Robinson]

  Kerry,

Win 7 will run some older 486 software.  Both Pro and Home Premium have 
Program Files (X86) in the OS for this purpose.  I'm running quite a few 
programs under Win 7 that I ran on XP.   Not sure about your FORTRAN 
compiler.  That 's probably a DOS program, eh?  If it won't run on Vista 
it probably won't run on 7.  However I've never run Vista so don't 
really know.

As far as hardware compatibility goes, My newest PC, now 2 yrs old, 
doesn't have a floppy drive.  The MOBO doesn't even have a port for one. 
I bought a portable USB floppy drive to fill this gap.  Works OK.  I 
looked on Tigerdirect.com, found soe pretty good looking PCs there that 
can be spec'd for XP & Win 7.  All is not lost. :-)

  I've done a little recent reading on Win 8.  It appears that if you 
load the Win 8 upgrade over XP or Win 7, not only will the installer 
tell you what programs it won't run, it will also delete them.  Not 
good.  ON the bright side of the Win 8 controversy, buyers aren't 
flocking to buy it.  Hopefully, we may see a Win 9 in the near future, 
the same as Vista was short lived.

Charley, af5ao