Google's IT certification heads for college curriculum

https://www.educationdive.com/news/googles-it-certification-heads-for-college-curriculum/533343/


It's online.

 

Good. If your degree is in IT then no one should be expecting a Shakespearean actor. You come as labeled.

 

All the world is your stage.

 

I dunno, Steve. I've been waiting, with a few other die-hards, hoping for a resurgence of DOS for about 28 years now. Maybe next year ....

(I know, there's DOSBOX for old-skool gamers and VDOS was really nice until Windows 10 killed it stone-dead. REAL men use the DOS prompt! )

 

Yes, Steve - I know about FREEDOS. If your PC is any newer than prehistoric - you have to run it inside an emulator. New or relatively recent machines won't run any form of DOS natively - heck, they won't even run Windows 9x! Many brand-new ones (including my laptop) won't even run any pre-10 version of Windows fully and reliably. Win7 and earlier versions lack drivers for new hardware - and nobody's making those drivers as there's no money in writing them for an obsolete OS. You can roll your brand-new machine back to Windows 7 only to find your soundcard doesn't work - or something equally disastrous.

Dos Emulators will all have the same limitations as DOSBOX (640 x 480 etc.) VDOS is the only product I've seen that runs DOS software full-screen on a modern monitor - but it's for text-only applications. Use graphics and it defaults to 640x480 (as it's based on DOSBOX). Also, as I said, the author has indicated (with full explanation) that there cannot be a version of VDOS for Windows 10 - ever. DOSBOX can be modded to display larger screen sizes, but as you enlarge, the graphics pixelate visibly and are of substandard appearance, much like digital zoom on a camera - but worse.

Emulators are for lesser beings. Gimme my old 286 - or a .357! Come to think of it - I still have a 286 - a 1986 Sharp PC4600 laptop with two 720K floppies and no hard drive - none possible, either. CGA monochrome graphics - leading cause of blindness in the 1980s, (sez me). And yes, it still works and I still have software of that era - e.g. Visicalc. Also, picked up a bunch of brand-new 720K floppies in shrink-wrap at the Sally Ann a while ago.

 

That VDOS default to 640x480 happened in unanticipated places, too. Many DOS word processors and Spreadsheet programs make use of graphics - like DOS MS-Works and DOS Quattro Pro spreadsheet. That's why I keep VisiCalc around!

 

I don't know what this really means, but... https://hothardware.com/news/microsoft-ms-dos-open-source-three-decades-after-release-github

 

Doesn't mean much. They've released the coding that resulted in the long-defunct operating sysytems MS-DOS 1.25 and DOS 2.0. Those versions were long-dead when I got to PCs in the 80s.

From the article:

"Re-releasing the source code won't exactly have a rippling effect on the computing community, both because MS-DOS is a relic from a much earlier era of computing, and because programs like DOSBox already offer MS-DOS emulation for older games and applications that might still require it. Still, it's pretty neat that Microsoft has done this."

It is?

 

Yeah, I remember DOS 6.xx so it progressed quite a bit from 2.0.

I could never get into it. Never held my interest.

 

@Steve: Apple computers are great - but I'll never buy anything from that company, no matter how good. Anyway, a new MacBook was about 4.5 times the price of my new HP laptop - which is now dual-boot, Ubuntu Linux and Windows 10. It's doing fine and helping teach me Anglo-Saxon.

At first I had to learn it - to use PCs at work and later for my own pre-Windows machine. I learned to write batch files etc. and soon I really liked DOS. I still have a copy of the first DOS I purchased - Digital Research DR-DOS 3.41. (It was around $25 when MS-DOS was nearly $100.) I use it nowadays to run my old 1988 Sharp laptop. I always liked DR products better than Microsoft - and later (early 90s) it was the only non-Microsoft DOS that didn't trigger all sorts of alarms when used with early Windows - 3.1 which required a DOS installation. Those were the days...

What next? After this announcement from Microsoft, I'm expecting:

"Ford Motor Co. has just announced it is making available detailed blueprints of the Model T."
"The successors of Thomas Edison are making available complete construction plans for the Electric Light Bulb. Serious hobbyists will soon be able to make their own - possibly for as little as $500 each."

 

On topic: I have to raise an eyebrow at college credit being given for this course. I took and finished it a few months ago. All of the labs required to pass the modules were accompanied by verbatim instructions. You were not asked to perform a bunch of tasks, you were given step by step: "type this, click that" type instructions for the labs and were never left on your own to complete and pass them. I sent in feedback that they should change that.

 

Hmmm. Could be the easiest 12 credits yet. Even FEMA doesn't do that.

 

Thanks for that feedback. That could raise both eyebrows and purse a lip.