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posted by janrinok on Tuesday November 19 2019, @11:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the too-soon? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Intel is removing drivers and BIOS for its old desktop boards so anyone running an old Pentium-based PC has four days to get hold of anything they might need.

The warning on Intel's download center page says:

End Of Life - This download, BIOS Update [RL86510A.86A] P21, will no longer be available after November 22, 2019 and will not be supported with any additional functional, security, or other updates. All versions are provided as is. Intel recommends that users of BIOS Update [RL86510A.86A] P21 uninstall and/or discontinue use as soon as possible.

Opinion on message boards is mixed, with some accepting that a 20-year support cycle is not terrible. But others pointed out that some industries like manufacturing will still be relying on old hardware to run parts of their infrastructure.

Posters on Vogon, a forum dedicated to ancient hardware and emulators that allow you to run old games on newer machines, questioned the move and how much space and storage Intel would really save by the housekeeping measure.

Various people are setting up their own mirrors and using archive.org, but the maker community noted that file names are not always obvious and downloading from mirror sites can be risky.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:08AM (3 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:08AM (#922180)

    Last year my laptop died and I had to buy a new one. I couldn't find the CD with my printer driver (10-15 year old printer). Went to the website, and just about every link I clicked on older than maybe 10 years took me back to the top level drivers page (in other words, instead of 404 they had me start over). Finally found a Windows XP driver for my printer, which worked under Win10.

    I neither write nor maintain web pages, but link rot is a real thing and I suspect it, instead of bandwidth/storage, is the real cost driver for not supporting older devices.

    The sad thing. About a month later my printer had a paper jam. With no paper in it. So I ended up getting a new printer anyway.

    That said, I don't know why companies can't just make a "really old shit" link, and under that they never update their web pages nor the underlying tech, but the links still take you to the ancient drivers.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:45AM (2 children)

    by dry (223) on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:45AM (#922268) Journal

    Even just an ftp site. Oh yea, ftp is now depreciated. Still I can find all kinds of OS/2 software and other equally old stuff on IBM's boulder ftp server.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:30AM (1 child)

      by anubi (2828) on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:30AM (#922283) Journal

      I had to search for WSFTP6.EXE . Old FTP client on both my WIN7 and WIN95 machines. I use those to get stuff in and out of my phones, which I have an FTP server running.

      There is a 25 year gap between those two programs - what's running in the computer, and what's running in the phone. Both still work perfectly

      Wish I could make the same claim for most of my paid stuff.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:55AM

        by dry (223) on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:55AM (#922287) Journal

        Yes, ftp just works. Unluckily it is being removed from Firefox and may have already been removed from Chrome, in the name of security.
        Ftp does seem to be the way that a lot of Android file managers share files and it works fine.