Also worth noting, I continue to use the 'Show Desktop' feature and have done so until Windows 10. (There's a hack in Win10 where you can enable the old 'Quick Launch' feature). I use this to quickly show how responsive the system is.
Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
91–100 of 201 posts
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note he said 100hz not mhz. Essentially 100 times per second the message queue would process but if you moved the mouse it would process faster.
And the BSDs and Linux also have the HZ parameter for scheduling and for a long time the default has been as low as 100 Hz. Not sure what the current status quo is.
For FreeBSD it's been 1000 for... ages, except for virtual machines, where it seems to be 100 by default.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#93Here I was thinking this was some sort of urban myth caused by superstitions in an age with less abundance of easily accessible tech information. Guess I owe my dad an apology now.
I just send my dad an apology as well.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#94This is why I love HN.
I miss this mysterious, charming, golden era of tech.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#95I used to open the CD drive when the entire computer would freeze up. I wonder if its the same thing.
Same here! I can't remember if I did the moving mouse thing, but I definitely opened the CD drive to unfreeze the computer.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#96From a comment: Try opening a large file with Notepad on a contemporary machine. The window must not be full screen. When loaded, mark all text using the mouse (the keyboard works as well, it just needs more manual skill). While still holding the button down (and marking) move the mouse down, so the text gets marked and scrolled. Now compare the scroll speed while holding the mouse still versus wiggling it. Depending…
I had completely forgotten about the mouse-wiggling trick! It's just one of those things I used to do without thinking about it. It makes sense that an event loop was waiting for an event to fire.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#97This wasn't just restricted to COM port based I/O either. Back then I had a Logitech bus mouse. The mouse was connected directly to an ISA card, and didn't use the COM ports as most mice did back then. (I needed the extra COM port/IRQ for my modems.) I too witnessed the 'windows is running slow when installing' bug. I often would use the mouse cursor to 'mark' the position of the loading bar (we really are spoiled fo…
Get off my lawn! But what newbies will bever know the heck of: dip switch settings for IRQ for modems. Thats what literally got me into computers... In order to dial up BBSs and play tthe Pit and dl warez. —- Ive told this story before, but in about 1992? Or so - i got grounded for a month because i had been calling in long distance to a bbs in san jose to play the pit - and racked up a long distance bill of $926 - m…
> Ive told this story before, but in about 1992? Or so - i got grounded for a month because i had been calling in long distance to a bbs in san jose to play the pit - and racked up a long distance bill of $926 - my dad was livid.
I had this problem until I discovered a bug in a Major BBS door game (TradeWars 2002) that let me have unlimited BBS credits. No more charges on my moms phone bill and even was able to trade those for other things in real life. Early bitcoin in a way. Looking back on it, my need to get online overrode my ethics regarding either my moms bank account or the sysops running the BBS. Oh well.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#98A somewhat similar effect is alive and well on Android: background processes run measurably faster while user holds/moves their finger across the screen, and couple of seconds thereafter.
Mechanism is a bit different though: SufraceFlinger process that is responsible for acquiring touchscreen input, temporarily boosts CPU and GPU frequencies to make sure screen animations are nice and fluid.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#99From a comment: Try opening a large file with Notepad on a contemporary machine. The window must not be full screen. When loaded, mark all text using the mouse (the keyboard works as well, it just needs more manual skill). While still holding the button down (and marking) move the mouse down, so the text gets marked and scrolled. Now compare the scroll speed while holding the mouse still versus wiggling it. Depending…
I think you'll find that Shift + Page Down is the fastest way to mark a lot of text, since you're doing it page by page instead of character by character.
Or, since GP said "mark all text", use Ctrl/Command+A.
Of course neither of these would demonstrate the effect they were talking about.
Re: Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love these kind of issues, here are two classics: - Open Office won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161... - Can't send email more than 500 miles: http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles
One thing about the famous "500 miles" post that I realized doesn't make sense: ---- An odd feature of our campus network at the time was that it was 100% switched. An outgoing packet wouldn't incur a router delay until hitting the POP and reaching a router on the far side. So time to connect to a lightly-loaded remote host on a nearby network would actually largely be governed by the speed of light distance to the d…
Possibly the introduction wherein the author says:
"The story is slightly altered in order to protect the guilty, elide over irrelevant and boring details, and generally make the whole thing more entertaining."
If memory serves he goes into further detail about the alterations and some common objections to the story in his FAQ: