New Year = New Intel Chipset

This is NOT the new Intel Chipset it is only an example

Quoting from the tom'sHardware website article entitled, "Comet Lake to Allegedly Feature 10 Cores With up to 5.3GHz Thermal Velocity Boost."

A new flood of leaks has flowed onto the net, so it increasingly looks like Intel will launch its 10th-Gen Core CPUs for the desktop, codenamed Comet Lake, at CES in early January. Most notably, according to the latest leaked information, the i9-10900K will feature 10-cores with a maximum “velocity boost” of 5.3GHz. The new chips should also mark the debut of the new 400-Series chipset.

Those of us who are aware of such things realize that a new chipset means a new round of upgraded computers not just from Intel but from all of the computer chip manufacturers. Usually, a new chipset also means upgrades to computer operating systems to take advantage of the new features or capabilities of the new chipsets. Inevitably, it also means my own computers are now another new chipset older than they were before the introduction.

Genealogists who actually use computers are probably the least innovative and most conservative such people in the world. Last night I had a long discussion with a friend in Canada who is trying to help a genealogist who wants to finally move his or her Personal Ancestral File data to another program. Unfortunately, my friend did not know if this person still had the data on floppy disks or if the files were accessible at all because they were on a computer running Windows XP or an older operating system. When I help genealogists with their files, it is not unusual to find them on a computer running Windows NT. By the way, Windows XP reached the end of its life cycle on April 9, 2019. Microsoft ended support for Windows NT back on June 30, 2002, and then extended support to June 30, 2004.

Recently, Apple updated its operating system without announcing a major chipset upgrade. However, the upgrade called Apple OS X Catalina or Version 10.15.2 (on my iMac), moved the operating system from being based on a 32-bit processor to the resident 64-bit processor. Previously, the system was compatible with the older 32-bit systems. This change essentially made almost all of the stand-alone genealogy programs on my computer inoperable until they were upgraded. As of the date of this post, some of those programs still have not been upgraded and I can no longer use them on my iMac.

This upgrading and technological changing process is real and not going to stop. Computers are not like toasters that you buy and keep using until they break down. They are also not like cars that you can keep driving as long as you can keep them running. Computers are part of a complex system of operating systems, the internet, user software, and other components all of which are driven by changes in the underlying technology of the computer chips that run the computers.

Those who wish to travel on this technological stream need a boat that will float and unfortunately, those boats will keep changing at least every year or so or sooner.