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Comments

• jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Windows at least makes sense when you understand the reasoning.

  For years websites have been warning people their OS is out of date if it detected they were running Windows 95 or Windows 98.

  They did this by pulling the version and displaying the warning “if version = Windows 9*”

  So it would have been super embarrassing to have a brand new OS trigger out of date warnings. Skip over Windows 9 and go straight to 10, problem solved.

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  • zewm@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That should be up to the websites to fix, not Microsoft.

    This seems like a made up reason.

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    • m_f@midwest.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There’s at least one example you can look at, the Jenkins CI project had code like that (if (name.startsWith(“windows 9”)) {):

      issues.jenkins.io/secure/…/PlatformDetail

      Microsoft, for all their faults, do (or at least did) take backwards compatibility very seriously, and the option of “just make devs fix it” would never fly. Here’s a story about how they added special code to Windows 95 to make SimCity’s broken code work on it:

      Windows 95? No problem. Nice new 32 bit API, but it still ran old 16 bit software perfectly. Microsoft obsessed about this, spending a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x, told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here’s the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn’t working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn’t free memory right away. That’s the kind of obsession with backward compatibility that made people willing to upgrade to Windows 95.

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    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s absolutely not a made-up reason.

      It was a way to get around the fact that Microsoft didn’t use proper version numbers for ages, and it became standard (enough) practice such that MS had to account for it if they didn’t want to break legacy support for a shitload of software that enterprises customers care about.

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    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s not websites, it was about local apps.

      There are a bunch of 20 year old apps designed for Windows XP which would complain that Windows 9 is too old.

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    • jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Can you imagine? “Microsoft demands all websites update their code for new operating system.”

      The alternative being “Why websites think your new computer is old.”

      Microsoft dodged all of that by skipping a version number and the worst question they get asked is “Where did Windows 9 go?”

      They even had tshirts that said “Because 7 8 9”.

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    • saigot@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Say should all you want, when the user has been using an app for 20 years and then an update breaks it they blame Microsoft not the app. Although I think a big part of it was also choosing 10 as a nice round number for their “”“final”“” os.

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  • Voyajer@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    How many sites were checking for pre-NT windows versions at all at the time of the release of windows 10?

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    • jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Enough to make Microsoft skip Windows 9. ;)

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    • can@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      People use a ton of legacy software.

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  • KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Apple’s kind of makes sense too. The removal of the home button was probably the biggest change ever made to the iPhone so they probably wanted a more impactful number/letter. Also, it was the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.

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  • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I thought it was because the number 9 was associated with suicide in some cultures?

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    • jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I don’t think Microsoft is that culturally sensitive. :)

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• MTK@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Wait until you hear about xbox skipping 1 to 359!

  They did get back to try and redo it but then quit after 1!

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  • scharf_2x40@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I dont think the second generation of xbox was callled xbox 2.510412868 E+778

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    • Dicska@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Nah, they just used the entire number.

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    • jaybone@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s just an approximation though right? I doubt the number has that many zeros.

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• Octopus1348@lemy.lol ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s because 789

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  • splicerslicer@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s because 9 is a registered six offender

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• UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I believe Apple just never made the 9 because that would have confused people. The 8 and the X dropped the same year due to the 10 year anniversary of iPhones so it was a special case.

  Chronologically, they’d have to go back to the 9 and then the next phone would be the 11 because the X already exists, so going straight to 11 makes sense to not confuse the masses for me.

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  • Natanael@slrpnk.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They could’ve made it iPhone Y instead, lol

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• zeppo@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Microsoft’s XBox versioning is even stranger.

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  • Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Windows has been weird since long before the event the OP mentions though.

    Normal up until 3.1, then:

    • 95
    • 98
    • 2000
    • ME
    • XP
    • Vista
    • 7 (internally, actually 6.1)
    • 8 (internally, actually 6.2)
    • 8.1 (internally, actually 6.3 and therefore as significant as 7 -> 8)

    Also, the hilarious alleged reason they did it. Not (just) because of the marketing boost associated with version 10, but because they specifically wanted to avoid the number 9 out of backwards compatibility concerns. Some old code would actually detect it’s running on “either 95 or 98” by doing a string comparison of the version number returned by the OS, and seeing if it started with ‘9’.

    Rather than risk maybe causing some compatibility problems with an edge case in software from the early '00s, they figured “just skip it entirely”.

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    • zeppo@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Ha, urgh… the string checking thing is amusing. That’s not even counting that ME was the last DOS based one, and there was NT 3.1, 3.5, and 4, then 2000 was NT 5.0… and XP and everything after that. Then internally XP was NT 5.1, 5.2, and Vista was NT 6. Windows 7? NT 6.1. Windows 8: NT 6.2. Then Windows 10? NT 10,0. Now the latest Windows 11 is uh, 23H2.

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    • Natanael@slrpnk.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Version numbers actually existed (Windows 95 was 4.0) but nobody used them

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    • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I haven’t used windows in ages, but I do remember compatibility mode, and you could select the OS a program should be compatible with. Why couldn’t they have had Windows 9, and for apps with issues, you could run in compatibility mode for XP?

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  • Fisch@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Don’t get me started on USB

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    • Deceptichum@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That makes sense.

      USB 1,2,3,4 is the standard and relates to the speeds.

      USB A, B, C, Micro, Mini refers to the shape.

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• Samsy@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Debian devs: fuck it, next version will be 13.

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• foggianism@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Big companies are doing this so they can sell their product on the Chinese market more easily. The number 9 is associated with death in China.

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  • Mr_Fish@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s 4, not 9. The words for death and 4 in Cantonese sound similar, I think with only a small tone difference.

    Also, in a similar way, 14 is close to “must die,” and 24 is close to “easy to die”

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    • AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Sounds like we’re talking Bruce Willis movies now

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  • fl42v@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Waaait, are ppl still that stupisticious?

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    • madcaesar@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      🤣 People still believe in talking to imaginary friends with superpowers. Magic numbers are tame by comparison.

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    • HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      In china, absolutely. Phone numbers, license plates, condo building floors etc. 8 is good and those fetch high price

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    • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      When I worked at a restaurant and someone’s order came to $6.66, they would sometimes add or remove items to prevent that order total. Always made me chuckle.

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    • son_named_bort@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There used to be a US highway 666. It was renumbered to 491 back in 2003 due to 666 being associated with the mark of the beast.

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    • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I went to the US in 2013 and there were still a lot of hotels (and I think some other places but I’m not sure) that skipped the 13th floor and room number 13

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    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m not superstitious. Heck, I’m not even a little stitious.

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• IndustryStandard@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  iPhone? Nein.

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• FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There was no Windows 4 either. Do you know why?

  Image

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  • Limonene@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I literally own a CD of Windows NT 4. I have used it before on two different laptops, a long long time ago. Windows NT 4 absolutely did exist.

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    • FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Windows 4 is not Windows NT 4.

      Windows NT was separate from Windows.

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  • splicerslicer@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    In some eastern Asian cultures four is considered an unlucky number, similar to 13 in western cultures. Same reason OnePlus went 3-3t-5

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  • w2tpmf@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes there was.

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• seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Am I the only one nostalgic for old iOS? I remember how everyone was so amazed at how iOS 6 looked

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  • Cosmonaut_Collin@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Old ios updates were significant. I don’t know when it changed, but now there is hardly a difference in versions.

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    • Deceptichum@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Do we want huge changes every few years over minor tweaks and improvements? Like the basics of most phone OS are pretty functional and standard at this stage.

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    • Fudoshin@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Sounds like OSX/macOS.

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  • onion@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    iOS 7 kimda sucked tho

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• Deceptichum@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’d say Nintendo products or Street Fighter games take the crown

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  • bruhduh@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Fate anime series be like: hold my beer son

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• Ddub@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Red hat Linux has managed to flame out on the cusp of v9 twice too, so maybe $4…

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• ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m down voting you for butchering the quote.

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• Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Apple’s done this with more than just iPhones.

  Mac OS didn’t do this, but the marketing of version 10 as “OS X” set the stage for everything to come later. With other products, they did it with Final Cut Pro X and QuickTime X

  iMovie also did something interesting where they went from marketing by year of release to version 10. Luckily, there was iMovie '09 and iMovie '11 before that, but no 2010 version. So limited confusion.

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