I Went Into Pc World Yesterday.

[10ClarionSt]

Was thinking of buying a new computer. I need one anyway as mine is XP. This means all my files and documents won't work on Windows 8 or 10. I asked that if I bought a new pc, could they take Windows 10 off, and load Windows 7 on it, as my files will work with that. The tech team said they couldn't, as Windows 10 was pre-loaded. I couldn't believe that. I said anyone could purchase Windows 7 and load it themselves, but they said they wouldn't do it. I know they can do it, because a different store did it for a friend of mine. But they wouldn't budge, so I'll buy one from elsewhere because I know they can still be bought.

[Hypognosis]

Isn't it good the way you can buy normal household goods and get 10-15 years' use out of it. None of this throwing away of perfectly functional 5 year old kit and buying "upgraded" versions of software at £300 a throw. Oh look, semi-tranparent window edges. No change in core functions in this millenium.

I had a word processor in the 80s (Atari 16-bit, lol) which had a dictionary capable of wildcard searches and anagrams, costing under 50 quid. Can M$ Word do tricks like that?

[hc4361]

£50 in the 80s? You were rich, man

[Hypognosis]

@hc

I wonder if my subconscious automatically adjusted for inflation, or if it was £15 not 50? Arnor Protext, fwiw. British-made software (shock, horror!) Feature-packed programs which fit on one 720k floppy disk!

They went broke, of course. You see what happens when people do their job properly?

[Buenchico]

^^^ My Atari ST cost about 200 quid in the 80s. Decent software for it was even more expensive, with the DTP program PageStream setting me back another 250 quid.

Interestingly though, Pagestream could do everything then that QuarkXpress can do now. QuarkXpress requires a minimum of 2Gb disk space but with a whopping 100Gb being recommended. PageStream came on a dozen floppies!

[TTG]

I would not buy a pc from Pc World. You can get better specification and cheaper machines elsewhere online. Also theirs will come loaded with "bloatware".

[ivor4781]

dam ! i missed all those.lol

[CrapAtCryptics]

I had a Texas Ti99/4a a princely 16k hard disk and backing up to music cassettes. An excellent introduction to economic coding.

[Hypognosis]

@Buenchico

Difficult to say how much I paid for mine (1040ST), as it was a bundle, with Steinberg sequencer software and the price was slightly discounted, relative to their individual prices. Maybe £300, instead of 200+150. Equivalent to a second-hand car or two or three months' rent (outer London).

@hc4361

//You were rich, man//

I'm still unsure whether that was sarcasm. What would (1987£)50 be in today's money?

[hc4361]

A whole £131. :D

[galeck1947]

They are right that they wont do that as Microsoft does not allow them to do that anymore. You would better to get Windows 10 preinstalled as then you wouldn't have to go through the dramas of downloading it. Sooner or later you will have to get it. I have it on 4 of my computers and have no issues with it.

[CrapAtCryptics]

You could try PCSpecialist - from £330 upwards you can get a decent laptop and specify if you want any software on it so you can do it yourself. I always do with a new machine.