I am sympathetic, don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t the only industry and this isn’t the only time this has happened. It happens every day in every industry and has been happening forever and will continue to happen forever. The old example is buggy whips, someone might have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars making or collecting whips for horses only to have thar investment disappear when cars came around. Or making/collecting spears just as the Roman army switched to swords. Or medieval turnip farmers when suddenly everyone wanted to eat the newly discovered potato. Or people who bought all their favorite movies on Betamax and can’t easily watch them anymore.
There are very few creators who actually create the things they rely on to create, ultimately we are all consumers even inside our professions. And like any consumer, we are all at the mercy of a market we don’t control. Either you have to accept that everything must come to an end and plan for that eventual end, or you have to dig deeper into your creativity.
Everyone has something they rely on that will disappear before they’re ready to lose it. It’s a reality of life and as much as humankind has experienced that loss for thousands of years, we never seem to get any better at accepting it or planning for it.
Yes, Windows has made a reputation for backwards compatibility and it works surprisingly well. However, it's not perfect and it only goes so far. I know there are a lot of companies out there still running Windows 95 because their software doesn't work on more advanced versions. Also, what have Microsoft given up for this compatibility? Its my understanding that Windows source code is a huge mess which has made updating it a large project. Just look at the control panel for the most recent version of Windows; it's a mish-mash of styles and layouts.
Some things make no sense whatsoever though. Processor architectures only matter because CPU companies can't just add their competitors' ISA to their own chips. Nividia and Transmeta experimented with processors that contained all the features necessary for x86 or ARM support and then simply used a software JIT to convert ARM and x86 to an internal VLIW architecture. Translation from one instruction set to another is already a solved problem. The real problems are that some architectures are fundamentally different e.g. the memory model in x86 vs ARM. You can solve it by simply including both memory models in your universal CPU. The only thing that is standing in the way of this are the darn patents.
There are very few creators who actually create the things they rely on to create, ultimately we are all consumers even inside our professions. And like any consumer, we are all at the mercy of a market we don’t control. Either you have to accept that everything must come to an end and plan for that eventual end, or you have to dig deeper into your creativity.
Everyone has something they rely on that will disappear before they’re ready to lose it. It’s a reality of life and as much as humankind has experienced that loss for thousands of years, we never seem to get any better at accepting it or planning for it.