I agree ... PC's have been reduced to "toys."

In fact, that's the direction in which PC's have moved over the past decade. XP was not as useful for my work as Win98SE, and, even when I routinely used Win98SE, I often had to resort to a fully loaded DOS 6.22 or earlier in order to get the really useful app's to work.

As I mentioned, I still use the DOS-based OrCAD schematic, simulation, and autorouting software, simply because it works so much better, and above all, faster, than the many-dozens-of-kilobucks "professional" tools sold by Cadence and Mentor.

Together with the pSPICE v5.1, I have a useful set of tools with which to develop circuits. No Windows-based tool suite to which I've been exposed, and I've had to buy most of 'em, comes within reach of what this suite can do, particularly in the timeframe within which it can do the job.

The ultra-poor way in which mouse-operations are implemented, often wasting multiple minutes per operation simply because they require so many levels of menus before the desired operation is accessible is a large part of that performance problem. Poor library anagement is another common flaw. Few windows tools have task/context specific single-keypress ways of getting around that.

I don't know how the software industry could have forgotten about the really excellent mouse and drop-down menu management techniques used in the DOS era, but they seem to have forgotten. They've also forgotten that the computer is supposed to make work easier and more efficient.

Now, computers are just another toy. Users are impressed by flashy displays and "kewl" graphics, and care little about performance and efficiency.

RE