I have felt left behind by a technological rapture several times.
So much wonderful DOS software stopped working with Windows 95 - I particularly felt the loss of RAVEL, MusicBox and Sound Globs.
Jim Binkley's RAVEL system - a dedicated parallel language that only ran on an MPU-401. I remember having an extra-large laptop so I could run and MPU-401 in it. I have kept a 1992 Pentium running DOS 6 since then just to use it (even though I moved on to things like PureData) Here is stuff about RAVEL
ftp://ftp.cs.uu.nl/pub/MIDI/DOC/ravel.doc (it's not a doc, it's a text file you can read in your browser). People like Warren Burt used RAVEL in the 80s
There was another one - SoundGlobs? - had temperament setting so you could write 19-tone algorithmic stuff. You could program in a Gamelan, or automate a Raga machine. Yes, it sounded truly awful by today's standards, but it had a kind of magic to it. It stopped working an age ago
Funny how with time using the old box has come to be almost a performance practice thing, like playing a harpsichord or a viol da gamba. I have an oriiginal Roland U-110 MT-32 and things like that. I know I could do more and more easily with an iPad, but I love how I can make it do what I want (the old DOS computer).
