BUYING A NEW COMPUTER?

As you saw on the Home page, ProCARE is now obsolete due to incompatability with the Windows operating system now being installed by vendors i.e Windows XP.

ProCARE is a DOS-based system.

Windows 3.x, '95, '98, '98SE, and ME are all DOS-based operating systems.
Win 98 is DOS 7.00 and Win ME reports as DOS 8.00
ProCARE is OK on these operating systems.

Windows NT, 2000 and all variants of XP are not DOS-based systems.
ProCARE does not run on these operating systems.

All future releases by Microsoft are likely to be progressions of XP, the possibility of MS ever reverting to a DOS-based OS is virtually non-existent.
ProCARE was therefore declared obsolete on 1 April 2002.

Nevertheless, there are Homes that need to upgrade their computers for other reasons, but wish to continue with ProCARE.

There are two approachs -

(a) Run two computers. Leave ProCARE in your Win 98 computer and transfer all your other work to the new computer.
If necessary, the two computers can be networked, (an XP computer will talk to a '98 computer.)
If your old computer is more than 3 years old, it is probably worth nothing anyway. You would be either selling it for $50, giving it to the kids, or dumping it.

BUT, you can have it upgraded, more overhead RAM, bigger hard drive, even a new 'motherboard' to bring it up to modern day performance and speed.
This doesn't affect the operating system or your programs.

(b) Talk to your computer supplier about your special requirements.
You do NOT want a Windows XP operating system.
You need to have it replaced by a Windows 98, or Windows ME operating system.
This might sound silly, but also make sure the new computer has a floppy disk drive (Drive A:). They are on the verge of disappearing as well.

Note: As time progresses, it will become harder to find a vendor who can find you a copy of Windows 98 or ME.
Consider, if you fronted up tomorrow and asked for Windows 3.11 or Win 95, they would look at you blankly.
If you can't get anything else but Windows XP, then (a) above is your only option..

Assuming you now have a new computer loaded with Windows 98 or ME

(1) Organise your Internet connection.

(2) Go to http://www.homelink.co.nz/ , on the ProCARE site, navigate to the DOWNLOADS page. Download and install the "Complete ProCARE Installation"

(3) Start ProCARE (the first page will be unfamiliar, unless you happen to remember it from years ago - just step through it). Go to MISC, Retrieve Database.
Now insert a current ProCARE Backup diskette from your old computer in Drive A: and run the retrieval process.
You now have an image copy of your old computer ready to continue work.

ANY RECOMMENDATIONS ON BRAND OR TYPE OF NEW COMPUTER?

I have not tested any computers for over a year and a year is a long time in the computer game. The last one tested was fitted with an FIC1st mainboard with an AMD Athlon 1.2G chip running Windows ME. That one worked just fine.

But a few notes anyway.

Avoid IBM. Their latest computers are Unix (Linux) based with a Windows interpreter. We have had trouble with those.
On checking with the IBM website, it stated that there was no guarantee that the Windows interpreter would follow the Microsoft Windows specification in all respects (not verbatim, but as near as I can remember it).
The very latest models may be better, maybe not.

As a matter of principle, steer clear of "big name" brands, especially Hewlett Packard (HP) and Compaq. They tend to be very parochial in their software, having specially tailored operating systems and proprietary fiddly bits that keep you locked into the brand.

The standard 'Taiwanese clone" has always been the best bet. They are competing to increase their market share and one of their strategies seems to be compatibility with everything and everyone else.
If you don't recognise the name on the computer, you're probably in the right shop.

Portables and laptops.

Unless you really want to work on the train or the bus, it's a bad bet. They are initially more expensive than a desktop PC. If you want to network, the internal card will cost 5-10 times that of the equivalent PC card. Their very portability makes them far more vunerable than a desktop PC.

We have always had problems with laptops right from the outset and stopped looking at them around 8-9 years ago. We found that all laptops of that vintage used 'upper memory blocks' to accommodate the 'battery saving' functions. This is memory that could be used to house DOS in desktop models, thus freeing up 'conventional' memory for ProCARE. (ProCARE has no access to the vast amounts of 'overhead' RAM, now common in today's computers).
Laptops used to 'freeze' and otherwise behave badly.

If your preference for a laptop stems from a desire to work on ProCARE at two locations, the usual method is to use two PCs - making, transporting, then retrieving the ProCARE backup diskettes. This is usually a cheaper and safer option than one laptop.

Note. All the points made about Windows 98 versus XP above also apply to laptops and portables.



Background of MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System)

The PC-DOS / MS-DOS systems were designed for computers of the mid-80s, unbelievably simple, low capacity and slow by today's standards.

The initial version of ProCARE was released in 1988. Windows wasn't even invented.
With the advent of Windows 3.0 ( which was just a graphical user interface running on top of DOS) ProCARE moved to an icon start within Windows instead of working off the DOS prompt or a DOS menu.

Moores Law states that computer speed doubles approx. every 18 months. All through the '90's, this was a terrific advantage to ProCARE. We were able to add new functions which would have taken far too long to execute on earlier model computers.

Over at Microsoft however, the reverse was true. MS-DOS was a very restrictive development platform. Every way they turned, they would come up against some DOS limitation. They made some interim compromises (FAT16 to FAT32 etc.) to try to wheedle a bit more out of MS-DOS.

They designed Windows NT (New Technology) for commercial use, which eventually evolved to Windows 2000. That wasn't a DOS based operating system.

Finally they'd had enough. They decided that Windows ME was going to be the last Windows version based on MS-DOS. After that, they would throw it away completely and base all Windows products on the NT commercial operating system. The result was Windows XP.

This is all very understandable from their point of view. Unfortunately, after 14 years of active service, the MS decision to throw away MS-DOS has taken ProCARE with it.
Unfortunate for ProCARE, unfortunate for all the Homes who have loyally stayed with it through all our up's and down's.

Regards to All
Terry Coleman