Java With Jiva

A couple of days ago I was recalling my first computer. How it was a mish-mash of hardware that really didn't fit together. It had two IDE hard drives, but the CDROM used a Matsushita interface that connected directly to my SoundBlaster (mono!). And the first time I installed Windows 95, I had to fiddle around with 16bit DOS drivers so that I could access my CDROM. All that's changed of course, and now its near impossible to find a motherboard that doesn't support at least four IDE drives, some that support eight or more!

Of course there's ethernet cards! I remember having to worry about setting up IRQ's, IO Base, and all sorts of issues to get ethernet cards to work properly. Windows 95 made that a bit easier, but under DOS is was a near nightmare! Especially if a game (Duke Nukem 3D was my favorite!) only worked with IPX and not TCP/IP, it was even harder to get it working. Ahh the good old days

What I really like about Hardware standardizing on one or at most two interfaces is that things have a tendency to just work. I especially like USB devices, plug in and it works. External drives, cameras, and other gadgets work without drivers in some cases.