A sad day: Good stuff now gone!

There comes a time when one simply has to clean out and throw things away. I’m one of those people who always try to find a place to store something “because I may need it sometime” rather than ridding my space of not only old but now unusable stuff. Especially computer stuff. Yesterday and this morning, I bit that proverbial bullet and began eliminating stuff.

I probably should have counted all the computer programs that I tossed, but I didn’t. However, I had my original Windows 3.x disks. They were all on those little floppy disks that didn’t flop. They dated back to when? The late eighties? Somehow I get the impression that if I tried to put that old system on my present computers, they’d just become bewildered and ask me, “Just what do you think I’m going to do with this old stuff? I can’t run slow enough!” They’re gone.

A few of the very old programs designed to run on Windows 3.x were also still hanging around. No longer. My original Windows 95 software was in the CD rack. As well as Windows 98, 2000, ME, and XP. I kept the XP disks. My friend who thinks W-2000 was the best ever and is still running on some of his equipment probably would have liked to have that one. Sorry, Fearless One, it’s gone. I must also say the original 25 or so Windows gui 3.5” disks were tossed long ago.

I replaced the very best word processor I ever used, Ami Pro, with Word and Office many years ago. It was a very reluctant change, but the owners of Ami Pro, Lotus I think, stopped developing it as it didn’t believe it could compete with Microsoft. It was about the same fate that claimed Word Perfect, too, but that one fought back and is still somewhat successful. I still had all my Office original and upgrade CDs from through the years. Like the Windows floppies, my Office floppies ones went out a few years ago. Now so have all but the latest version of Office I have.

I’d hate to try to mention all the old programs that I had kept. They wouldn’t even run on today’s operating systems. As I said before, I kept them simply because I just might want them someday. Many of them were programs I didn’t even use when I got them. They looked awful good in the store or in magazine advertisements; but when I tried them, they did not measure up to something I could use.

I also had several bookshelves loaded with computer books. I had books that dated back to the mid 1990s that taught me who to write web pages, how to write HTML and JavaScripts. How to program in Visual Basic, how to get the most out of Office and how to best utilize Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. There were books for just about all my software. I still write web pages using NetObjects Fusion. I kept those books.

I had a couple of boxes of computer parts. Whenever I upgraded my computers, such necessary items as 20 MB hard drives along with a few bigger ones, modems which tore along at 14.4 (or was it 12 point something?) speeds, and just about anything else that could be taken off a system for future use. It’s a future that now will never come.

I’ve just touched the surface of my elimination activity yesterday and this morning. There has been one real good thing come from the project: I now have room to store my new old stuff.

GiM