Why do we still have compatability problems?

[Scootin159]

In theory if everyone made all their hardware fully compatible and exactly to spec, shouldn't it all work, all the time? It seems that every compatability issue we see has something to do with a manufactuer cutting corners and releasing something that wasn't "fully compliant".

Why do companies continue to do this? I think the general consensus amoung all PC users is that a machine that works 100% of the time is much better than one that works 90% of the time and is 10% faster.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

omg :Q

:Q

 

[Yossarian]

As the Borg would say, it is imperfect hardware designed by imperfect beings to meet imperfect specs.

 

[Scootin159]

<< As the Borg would say, it is imperfect hardware designed by imperfect beings to meet imperfect specs. >>



So basically it's limited by the engineers who can't develop proper hardware in the time alloted to them? Then maybe they do need to slow down in some venues, as computers are basically fast enough for the needs they have right now. Didn't Microsoft reconize this with their recent plans to stop all development and go fix old bugs?

 

[ScrapSilicon]

<< Didn't Microsoft recognize this with their recent plans to stop all development and go fix old bugs? >>

that is contrary to M$ gospel...lol...why would they wanna stop the moneymaking process...there are imnumerable combinations of software/hardware it cannot all be perfect harmony. That is why I posted what I posted above. <edited for our typos>

 

[Mavrick007]

When you have all these companies competing for the market share, there has to be differences in products otherwise why not just have one motherboard, one cpu type, one video card type, etc. When these differences in products occur, it's almost impossible to ensure that all things will be compatible with joe blow's configuration cause he'll have something different that Mr. Jones down the road doesn't have.

Now when we talk about consoles. It's easy to make things optimized for them and things will work all the time. You don't have 100 different manufacturers making the mobo, and 100 different ones making 10 varieties of a video card, etc. Ie. You have one Xbox that is like every other one out there, it will take all Xbox controllers, the same software will work on all of them, all other components will work on them cause they're identical. It's easy to configure to something that is mass marketed. It would be great if that happened with PC's too but it's not going to happen too soon.

 

[Scootin159]

I'm more talking about being compliant with the established standards....I.E. PCI, AGP, USB (in hardware), and like DirectX, OpenGL, ect. in software.