Yamamoto! (Don't Build One)

[Vince53]

In the very early days of personal computing, we often used TV sets for monitors. We considered the low-powered CPUs and RAM chips as powerful but expensive monsters.

And a few people built Yamamotos. At a high cost, they bought the most powerful chip available and bought all the RAM it could hold.

But when Windows 95 came out, these Yamamotos couldn't run it, because their hardware, though powerful, was of an obsolete technology.

 

[Sketcher]

What exactly is/was a Yamamoto?

 

[Vince53]

What exactly is/was a Yamamoto?

A bigshot Japanese admiral.

 

[Sketcher]

A bigshot Japanese admiral.

He's who I thought about, but it makes no sense in the context of personal computers.

 

[Vince53]

He's who I thought about, but it makes no sense in the context of personal computers.

The key phrase, Sketcher, is "It makes no sense."

 

[Vince53]

Yamamoto had a good grasp of reality, including technology. He stated blatantly that Japan could not win a war with the United States, unless the US accepted peace terms within a year. He was an early advocate of aircraft carriers, which made the Japanese Army want to assassinate him.

He understood the value of using the latest technology, but failed to grasp the importance of future technology. And he also failed to grasp the speed at which future technological progress can be made.

 

[Vince53]

With most of the world's computers powered by single-core, 32 bit CPUs, Microsoft didn't tell the world that their new Vista Operating System was designed for dual-core computers. MS also neglected to mention that Vista was designed for new 64 bit computers.

But as 2006's release date approached, some folks got busy building Yamamotos. They had IBM's powerful quad-core CPUs installed. They had extra RAM. And they easily exceeded the minimum requirements for Vista.

But Vista ran poorly, if it ran at all, on most of their Yamamotos--the internal architecture of their hardware was not designed for Vista. But their expensive rigs were too costly to abandon.

Meanwhile, an off-brand company introduced a low-powered budget laptop with a dual-core, 64 bit CPU and 1/2 gigabyte of RAM. And it ran Vista with no problems.

 

[Vince53]

In planning the successful attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto vastly underestimated America's ability to produce rapid technological growth. He also underestimated God's ability to give the US an astonishing victory at Midway, but that's another story.

Within a few years, new American planes and ships were superior to what Japan had. Helping each other, the Allies made astonishing gains in radar and sonar. Unable to use cargo ships because the Allies kept sinking them, Japan was forced to use warships as supply ships --and the US Navy sank them faster than they could be replaced.

Traveling over friendly territory, Yamamoto was killed by Army planes.

And finally, less than four years after Pearl Harbor, the United States dropped nuclear weapons on Japan

 

[Vince53]

This is a two-parter:

I had been writing for a couple of years on a Windows 8 forum when Windows 10 came out. And companies began advertising Windows 10 computers.

But when I researched the computers on the web, I learned that they were Windows 8 computers with Windows 10 installed. And my other research told me that when Windows 10 was released, there were NO computers that had been built from the ground up for Windows 10. Those Windows 8 computers could not fully utilize the power of Windows 10.

In a private message, the administrator ordered me to stop posting this, because the site wanted advertising revenue. I refused and was banned from the site, along with piles of posts from other writers that what I said wasn't true.

But it was true...

 

[Vince53]

Part 2

Sure enough, the Windows 8 computers with 10 installed were using the then-current BIOS system. When real Windows 10 computers came out, they used the new UEFI system. 10 could run on either one, but 11 can only run on UEFI. That's why no Windows 7 or 8 computer can run 11.

But it really didn't matter. The first Windows 10 computers can't run 11 either. Most computers built (not "bought") in 2020 or 2021 can run 11 well. Some older rigs can run 11 poorly. But the first true Windows 10 computers can't run 11 at all.

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