Re: I want to go geek .. and VPC?

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

mhchoate wrote:
> Hmmm... yeah, software covers a lot of territory. All I'm trying to
> convey is this sequence:
> 1)-- Full Screen did not work (it flashed to Full Screen but only for a
> second)
> 2)-- No hardware was changed in any way.
> 3)-- It started working. Only suspect a BigFix download.
> (I had thought that it wasn't hardware, because of the one-second flash
> into it.)
Distinguish: 1. Hardware: the silicon etc. things you can touch and
handle; 2. Firmware: code burned into chips on said hardware (hence
the term "hardwired"); 3. software properly so-called, which can be
further divided into 3.1 drivers: software routines enabling the opsys
and applications to know what hardware they're running on and
communicate with it; 3.2 Operating system; and 3.3. Applications.
The "BigFix" probably changed a driver or--just possibly, but one
would have to see any instructions that came with it to be sure--the
BIOS. And Flashing to full screen for only a second sounds very much
like the way Graphics View behaves on a few systems that just cannot
support it (notably, and ironically, the same box that could put it in
a window under 98SE, and couldn't support it AT ALL under W2K.)

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx