One of my procrastinated pending projects was updating our Learning English Electronically (LEE) CD-ROM software, a still well-used English Grammar coded with Macromedia Director 5.0 in 1998 and updated last in 2000.
I had read some time ago that Director Apps needed to be authored in at least version 8.5.1 to run in Windows XP environment, which is the main platform at our college that uses LEE the most. In November, I had done some quick dusting off of this really old code, and found about 12 places in each lesson (out of 110 lessons) that needed to be changed.With luck, I may have been able to write a script to walk through and update. Maybe.
As luck would have it, I kept putting this one off. I had not heard any problems reported so, why not procrastinate? For some reason (I think it was lack of an XP test machine at the time, our archaic building insists on Windows 2000) I had never even tried, but last week, just for grins, I tossed LEE into the Windows XP box in my office. Shazam! It worked perfectly, audio was right on, printed exercises.
Cross that puppy off of my to-do list. Some emails from ex-Macromedia software engineers supported that the basic tasks our CD does would not be a problem in XP, but Macromedia would likely never say so outright that such crusty old software will still work.
Old Software that Still Works, awesome. Old Software I do not have to Update, even better.
PS- I have some speaking parts on LEE 😉 We used a lot of audio narration of every day scenarios to demonstrate various grammar principles. We were fortunate to be able to record this in a college sound studio, with some theater faculty and students. Good sound (as opposed to scratchy computer mikes) make all the difference. I was called to read some parts as well. That was my 15 minutes, yes indeed.
