No Backwards Compatibility in the Future: Difference between revisions

== [[Live Action Television]] ==

* The episode ''The Neutral Zone'' of ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' had a very strange aversion to this: The crew found an old Cryogenics pod from the 21st century, and Data was able to download and decode the entire pod's database (which looked like it used old tape wheels) onto his tricorder just by scanning the thing. (not quite Plug 'n' Play, as there was no attempt at interfacing involved. Just a scan and presto, all the info conveniently downloaded, when realistically speaking, the pod's computer would be too slow to display all its information that quickly)

*** 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.

** ...for the most part. ''[[Gradius]] Gaiden'', for instance, has a stage that runs just fine on a PS1, but will slow down more than an average round of ''[[Esp Galuda]]'' on a PS2.

** While the [[PS 3]] can run [[PS 2]] games, it does it by software emulation, as the Cell processor is completely different from the chip set used by the [[PS 2]]. There was some uproar when back in 2007, rumors abounded that certain future models of the [[PS 3]] may lose this software emulation function.

*** 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.

*** Frustratingly, the European [[PS 3]]'s were made with a different hardware set, and don't have any real emulation function at all.

** 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]] ==

** 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.

** It's not just software and hardware that falls victim to [[No Backwards Compatibility in The Future]]; it applies to physical materials too. Case in point, FOGBANK, which was an unbelievably-classified plastic used in Trident missile warheads. FOGBANK production ended in 1989. When the Navy wanted to refurbish its existing warheads, they had to build a brand-new factory to produce FOGBANK again - and discovered that the documented procedures didn't work. It turns out FOGBANK relied on an ''impurity'' included in the original batch, and this delayed the refurbishment by nearly ten years.

* 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.

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

[[Category:No Backwards Compatibility In The Future]]