"Gene Wirchenko" wrote

| Microsoft dropped support for 16-bit applications. I do not call
| that being very good with backward compatibility.
|

And I can't hook up a typewriter to my
computer's PS2 port. Oh, well. But I can
write VB6 software that runs on virtually every
currently running Windows computer, back to
Win95, with no support files needed. If I were
programming on a Mac I'd b targetting only the
last two versions. God help any Mac user who
wants software to run on a 3-4 year old machine.

Each bitness requires a shim to run the earlier
version, as I expect you know. Win-64 has to have
built-in functionality to adapt to Win-32. Likewise
with Win-32 to Win-16. In other words, Microsoft
didn't break anything. They just didn't build in support
for Win16. I don't know how much trouble that
would have been. But they have to draw the
line somewhere. Software circa Win3.1 can't
be any more than a novelty these days.