No Backwards Compatibility in the Future: Difference between revisions

 

The inversion of this, where things that ''shouldn't'' be compatible ''are'', is [[Plug N Play Technology]].

 

** When you put the number together to find out that it was recorded in {{spoiler|2010}}, you find yourself questioning where they got it from to begin with, and why they would be using it to make a video time capsule instead of any other recording medium found in modern society. Even in 1998 when the anime was made, DVDs had already become mainstream, and VHS video recorders were still commonplace to find. Betamax has been pretty much impossible to find since the early 90's.

 

 

*** Or even badly preserved tapes. There was a case where the flight data recorder tape from a plane crash was too badly damaged by the fire to be replayed. They got the data off it by having people painstakingly examine it with microscopes, and read the ones and zeros off it, at a rate of about 1 second's worth of tape a day.

** Even more ridiculously, [http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~springer/DigitalNeedle/ some guy managed to] write a computer program that plays back phono records using a flatbed scanner on a lark.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[South Park]]'' has the episode where Cartman froze himself to avoid waiting for a Nintendo [[Wii]]. When he is thawed out (500 years later), he discovers that future displays aren't compatible with those of his time.

** Somewhat justified in that both pieces of technology they're attempting to use in conjunction are cobbled-together, oft-patched desperation-grade junk in the first place. And, y'know, the fact that the Autobot tech they're trying to use is in excess of ''three million years'' older then their Maximal tech.

** Not to mention, built on an entirely different [[Humongous Mecha|scale]]...

** Even the smarter Maximals can't figure out how the Ark was ''made'' in the first place.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* A good reason why backwards compatibility may be hard to come by is that the manufacturer chooses a different hardware platform each generation and can't find a way to recycle the old hardware (if they can still use it). Software emulation could make up for it, but this gets harder to implement as features get more rich.

* Unfortunately for owners of the [[DS]], the different chipset in use means that their old [[Game Boy]] titles won't work with their new systems. Game Boy ''Advance'' cartridges, however, will still work with the DS "Phat" and DS Lite models.

*** Unfortunately, the DSi sacrificed its Game Boy Advance port for more gadgets, so DSi-using Trainers will need an older-model system on hand for all of their migration needs.

*** The inbuilt Virtual Console seems to be an inversion as it runs a ''lot'' of classic games, even those from [[Sega]], the old-era rival of Nintendo. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to re-buy a (often slightly tweaked) digital version game direct from Nintendo. Your old carts and CDs will not work with the current hardware.

*** The first year models for the North American, Asian and Japanese markets have hardware-based BC. The 80 GB models that came out later had software emulation for the Emotion Engine, while the Graphics Synthesizer was run on a chip. The 40 GB models and later 80 GB models dropped all BC, but there are rumors of full software emulation on all models for firmware version 3.0.

*** [[Crack is Cheaper|Too expensive, you say?]] [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]...

**** Although, some aren't going to be compatible (the original ''Chronicles of Riddick'' game, to prepare for the enhanced remake and most likely Steel Battalion, because of the controller issues).

* In ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'', Aile and Vent have no problems using the 20XX Energy Tanks from the Classic series, while in the Battle Network series, Lan and Megaman.exe have no problem exploring ancient parts of the Internet. The Ruby-Spears incarnation of [[Mega Man X]] also had no problems using Weapon Copy on Robot Masters from a hundred years in his past.

* The [[Sega]] console line of the early Nineties were known for excellent backward compatibility (especially compared to chief rival Nintendo): the [[Master System]]'s cartridges could not only be used on the [[Game Gear]] with an adapter (not surprising as the Game Gear was essentially a portable Master System) but also on the [[Mega Drive]] with a second adapter that duplicated some of the Master System's hardware (This was partly because the [[Mega Drive]] had the same Zilog Z-80 processor that was in its 8-bit siblings). Unfortunately, incompatibility set in with future Sega consoles (oddly, given that the Mega CD and [[Sega Saturn]] used the same storage medium, the CD, and the [[Dreamcast]], while using GD-ROMS, could read CDs...)

 

* Many old websites will now have dead plugins as browsers have moved on to better software than what was once used in the early days of the WWW.

** Shockwave, replaced by Flash and, in some places, Java.

*** Flash itself is slowly being replaced by newer systems, although none has been dominant enough to supplant it.

*** [[HTML 5]] standards are set to replace Flash for multimedia based applications... which is most of the reason why Flash is used. It's gaining ground, especially with big-wigs dropping Flash support.

* MMOs that rely on company-owned servers, eg for online [[Copy Protection]], are often doomed. When the company decides the game is no longer worth running, they'll pull the plug, and rarely does the server-side software get released to anyone else. You better hope enthusiasts managed to reverse-engineer the tech and make their own, or that game's gone for good.

** Same with online play in other game genres, for example, as mentioned above, Microsoft has pulled the plug on all original Xbox online gameplay.

** Similarly, with DRM-encrypted music, also used by Microsoft, if the DRM server goes down, the tunes are [[Lost Forever]]. Also, many iTunes songs were delisted before Apple switched to all DRM-free, so you can't upgrade them and they may never be available again. If for whatever reason, Apple decides to shutdown the DRM server, you're fucked.

* [[Gabe Newell]] of [[Valve]] has sworn that if they ever shut down Steam, they would release a patch beforehand that removed the internet connection requirement to play games bought through Steam.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* The engineering schematics for the space vehicles used in the Apollo project were written in an early CAD/CAM application that ran on computers that no longer function. The US National Archive has all the data preserved, but have no way to read it as modern computers are incompatible with the format they are stored in & the archivists have not been able to get funding to have a conversion program written.

** This ''may'' apply for the 1980s diagrams of British traffic signs, as commercial CAD software ([[Key SIGN]], formerly [[Auto SIGN]]) for this wasn't launched until the early 1980s by Pete Harman and Geoff Walker working for Humberside County Council. Prior to then, it's not known what software was used for these. Older [[Key SIGN/Auto SIGN|Auto SIGN]] diagrams ''may'' be compatible with the newer 2011 versions, but [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on this.

* This has been a significant problem for the US military as the try to upgrade their computers yet keep compatibility with tech that may be 60 years old. One case study is the the schematics for the nuclear aircraft carriers, which when read were displaying dotted lines as solid and other such glitches.

* 3 1/2 inch floppy disks are getting to this state, and 5 1/4 are pretty much already there unless you're an enthusiast.

** And just forget about 8-inch disks!

** Any storage systems that use SCSI (anything pre-SAS, but mostly SCSI II) are interesting for one kind of people anymore, and that's the electronic musician who prefers old-fashioned hardware samplers to running a software sample player on a computer. The same goes for just about all removable storage media that came out between the 3½" floppy and the CD-RW (ZIP, various MO drives, etc.). It helps a lot that musical instrument manufacturers like Akai or Kurzweil didn't change to USB and Flash memory cards as quickly as computer manufacturers.

** This mainly applies to DOS games - some of them simply dislike running in Windows' protected memory spaces, while others require DOS components not found in versions of Windows released after ME. Most of this was caused by Microsoft leaving MS-DOS behind when they made the jump to Windows 2000 by using the Windows NT system structure, as all previous versions of windows have had some reliance on DOS components.

*** Of course, this is also why many DOS software could be run on machines running Windows 95, 98, or ME - they still had MS-DOS embedded in their foundations.

** Windows 7 Pro's XP Mode can work with games that don't do heavy 3D rendering. It was more or less intended for companies to use their office applications.

** Of course, this whole issue is also gradually erasing itself as the increasing power of newer computers makes emulation and/or Virtual Machines trivial.

** If a pre-Win2000 (especially DOS-based) game had Redbook audio, such as ''[[Descent]] II'', it often required an analog audio cable directly connected to the soundcard from the disc drive, as opposed to the digital playback of later Windows versions. Fortunately, the ''D2X Rebirth'' sourceport/frontend for ''Descent II'' allows the CD music to be played digitally.

* Mocked (sort of) in [http://www.qwantz.com/fanart/dino-untitled.png this] piece of [[Dinosaur Comics]] Reader Art.

* Macs since 2005 are no longer compatible with pre-OSX software; it's also now getting to the point where a lot of software is ''only'' compatible with these Macs, leaving older ones out of the loop. Damn you, Apple!

* [[Linux]] is said to offer great support for older hardware. But beware if you want to compile an old program which requires a version of a library or the kernel itself which is not available anymore.

** Running old audio software, for example, has grown complicated since OSS was displaced by ALSA, and it seems to be a matter of only a few years until ALSA-based software will be unusable because PulseAudio has become the new standard. And even old hardware support will hit an obstacle when the drivers, hardly or not at all maintained anymore due to their age, become incompatible with newer versions of the kernel or certain libraries.

* In addition to all analog air signals being phased out, many cable stations are no longer watchable on analog TVs either (unless you have a box). Go buy that DTV.

* Some older engines (a few cars, but mainly outboard motors for boats, lawnmower and other small engines) cannot run on gasoline containing ethanol without replacing all non-metal parts in the fuel system.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]

[[Category:We Will Not Use an Index In The Future]]