Can today's Thinkpads still hang with the best of them? (typed on a recently-upgraded late 2006 MBP)
[deleted]
The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
101–110 of 135 posts
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#102It is interesting to compare Bond with Smiley. While Bond is whom the salesman aspired to be, Smiley is whom he would actually become. The expense account is a reptile fund over drafted by senior management for spurious expenses, he travels, but to cold and boring places, usually on a budget and staying out of sight in cramped hotels and safe houses. Instead of sleeping with beautiful women, he spends most of his tim…
Very perceptive. Introducing a third data point helps to clarify that there is more to the story of how we went from Bond to Bourne than just millennial job anxiety. There was quiet desperation back in the Bond era too.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#103Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…
This is a very American point of view. German and Japanese cars are very modular; you can take certain parts from a 3 series and use them in a 7 series, and vice-versa. The transmission in the Toyota 86 is straight out of a Lexus IS.
This is actually true for American cars as well. I used "Ford Fusion" and "Ford F-150" in my example because one's a family sedan and one's a big pickup truck. I bet the Fusion shares more than a few parts with the Focus.
At the very least, each American manufacturer shares engines and transmissions across its various models.
80s and 90s American car interiors were sort of quietly hilarious. They shared common parts like crazy. You'd see the same gearshift, steering wheel, and so forth on various models. Maybe that's why it was a really ugly era in automotive interiors; their designs were constrained by all the common parts.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I hear where you're coming from, but all of those parts are still serviceable. If your starter goes on your Ford car, you might have to buy a Ford starter (or a third party starter for a Ford car), but it can still be fixed with a commonly accessible set of relatively inexpensive tools. If the RAM in my Macbook gets cooked, either I can buy an entire new motherboard, or a new laptop. It's throwing the baby out…
I agree; it sucks for the reason you say. "Moore's Law" is probably part of the reason we're okay with this: by the time RAM/CPU/mobo start failing, a laptop is 5 (or 6 or 7 or 10) years old and the laptop's a dinosaur anyway. Heck, by that point a lot of us are probably hoping our laptops fail so we have an excuse to get a new one. I wonder if we'll stop being okay with this eventually, now that desktop/laptop CPUs…
Is that actually true?
We've hit a plateau on overall compute speed. There are incremental improvements, but the difference in performance over 5 years today is much less than it was 7-10 years ago.
My 10 year old laptop is awesome, and it's a Thinkpad too. I have fixed it, replacing a fan, upgrading RAM, etc... all good, but it's performance isn't so hot. Buying new made a lot of sense.
But, my current 4-5 year old, high end, laptop is still competetive in a way that didn't used to be true.
I've a 2012 MBP, and it's still plenty fast. The newer machines are nice, but it's not like the 2012 is irrelevant, and that particular MBP is servicable. Just barely, but possible. I've done a number of things on it.
The new machines now just aren't. So even the expert user service is off the table, and I find that hard to deal with personally, because I know I absolutely do plan on running the machine for 5+ years.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#105Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…
You're hopelessly, utterly wrong. I refer you to, for just one of millions of examples, the Apple II reference manual: https://archive.org/details/applerefjan78. The early culture of PCs was one of end-user fixing and upgrading by default, often primarily.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I hear where you're coming from, but all of those parts are still serviceable. If your starter goes on your Ford car, you might have to buy a Ford starter (or a third party starter for a Ford car), but it can still be fixed with a commonly accessible set of relatively inexpensive tools. If the RAM in my Macbook gets cooked, either I can buy an entire new motherboard, or a new laptop. It's throwing the baby out…
They are actually working on that. With DRM, DMCA, shitty software, etc. They want you to go back to the vendor to make sure things are fixed. Repairable? Only by authorized service dealers. At a monopolistic cost. And in the US you can thank the EPA for helping with that.
If you want a 1kg notebook that's 100x the power of a room-sized $40,000,000 Cray 2 from back when, you'll have to leave off things like connectors, removable covers, generalized internal interfaces, empty space (for varying-sized components), beefier batteries (to run whatever you plug in), etc. Some of us value compact over modular.
You want "repairable by user for cheap"? Such is eminently available, and will decidedly not weigh 1kg.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#107I'm not sure I buy the contrast between old computers and macbooks. The smallest replaceable part on a MacBook is the entire MacBook (excluding any wired or wireless peripherals), but the smallest in a normal computer might be the CPU. The CPU cannot be repaired except by replacing the entire thing. You can't repair a CPU or a MacBook, so it seems the the only real difference is how much it costs to replace the broke…
CPU's have been soldered to the motherboards of most laptops for an age now. Memory is beginning to be soldered to the motherboard too- I'm dubious as to how upgradable or modular the next generation will be.
RAM was soldered to the Amiga and ST too, back in the day. Neither they nor Macs were designed to be user-tweakable. PCs and clones were unusual.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#108Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…
This is a very American point of view. German and Japanese cars are very modular; you can take certain parts from a 3 series and use them in a 7 series, and vice-versa. The transmission in the Toyota 86 is straight out of a Lexus IS.
And the transmissions from e36 and e39 (early-mid 2000s) are built by GM. There is actually a lot of cross platform and cross manufacturer parts rattling around in our vehicles.
Honda is a great example of modular components. Taking a d-series and swapping it with a b-16/18/20 and even k-series with just a change in motor mounts/axles/ecu. It takes an afternoon to swap it over.
Of course as you get further into the aftermarket realm things like bolt-in conversions for swapping 2jz into 90s mustangs becomes possible. Fabbing up some brackets isn't that hard, conversely, desoldering a cpu or dealing with non-modular computer components is a much more daunting task to me. The parts are too small and fragile.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#109Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…
You're hopelessly, utterly wrong. I refer you to, for just one of millions of examples, the Apple II reference manual: https://archive.org/details/applerefjan78 . The early culture of PCs was one of end-user fixing and upgrading by default, often primarily.
> the Apple II reference manual
And then the Mac was sealed. You needed a special tool just to open the case.
I upgraded the RAM in my Atari ST by solder-sucking 16*(16+2) through-holes and soldering the additional chips and caps myself. Not exactly modular by design.
Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic
#110Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…
You're hopelessly, utterly wrong. I refer you to, for just one of millions of examples, the Apple II reference manual: https://archive.org/details/applerefjan78 . The early culture of PCs was one of end-user fixing and upgrading by default, often primarily.
The early history of PCs included sending away for a box of parts and a manual and then soldering the pieces together yourself. And then when you put the kit together, there was no software, so you had to write it yourself. Also, there was no keyboard, so you had to input the machine code for your software directly into RAM using toggle switches. And there was no real display, just a few LEDs that you could blink on and off.