[deleted]
Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
381–390 of 451 posts
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#382I had an Atari ST in a closet, and decided to get rid of it a while back. I pulled it out to test it. The boot sequence, all the way to a desktop with a mouse that moves, takes less than one second. If you boot from a hard drive, maybe another second. For a while I just kept hitting the reset button, marveling at the speed at which the ST came up. Most machines I work with these days take minutes to get rolling. Okay…
> Most machines I work with these days take minutes to get rolling. Minutes? That sounds exaggerated. How powerful was your Atari ST compared to other machines at the time versus the machines you work with these days compared to other machines available? Because I'm not even on a particularly new machine and from a powered off state I'm logged into Windows and starting applications within 5 seconds. And for example t…
> Minutes? That sounds exaggerated.
POST on a Dell M640 is about three minutes. Other Dell systems are similar. POST on the workstations that I use are in the range of 1-2 minutes. This is before the OS gets control (once that happens, it's usually 15-20 seconds to a usable system).
The ST was a pretty decent performer at the time (arguably a little faster than the original Macintosh, for instance). Both the ST and the Macintosh took about the same amount of time to boot from floppy disk (though the OS was in ROM for the vast majority of STs that were built).
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#383To call this rose-tinted glasses when considering how things worked in 1983 is a massive understatement. A counterexample: in 1983, enter two search terms, one of them slightly misspelled or misremembered, hit f3: "no results", spend 10 minutes trying to find the needle in the haystack, give up and physically search for the thing yourself. Enter two search terms slightly incorrectly now: no of the time it will know e…
I agree that a lot of the use cases back then were hyperspecific and the software were drag racers. However, much of what he talks about is productivity tools. I believe those fit the same description. I occasionally work with many different screens using a TN3270, some of which look very different and have very different purposes, however they have a common interface with similar keystrokes. This makes navigating ev…
So to some degree that's preaching to the choir around here; I still use emacs extensively and adore it, but I'd also never wish it upon anyone who doesn't value work efficiency over low cognitive load and nice aesthetics. In my experience, at least, that's most people.
In light of that, I think it's less that we've "lost" keyboard-driven efficiency as much as knowingly sacrificed it in favor of spending UI/UX dev time on more generally desired/useful features. The nice thing about being the type of power user who wants more keyboard functionality is that you can often code/macro it yourself.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
The example for maps is not a "hyper specific use case": "The process you WANT: pick your start and end. now start searching for places in between. Your start and end are saved. When you find someplace interesting, add it to your list. Keep doing that, keep searching and adding." That's a common use case. The problem with Google maps (and the problem with a lot of modern software) is, as you say, it makes a lot of gu…
Why do you think that use case is that common? And why do you think google maps should elevate that particular use case above other competing use cases?
Because it's so simple. I've been wanting it for YEARS. What's more simple than planning a trip? What else do you need a map for if you're not planning to go from point A to point B?
I hate when I need a restaurant or gas station ALONG MY ROUTE and yet years later no maps have this ability. It's insane.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most machines I work with these days take minutes to get rolling. Minutes? That sounds exaggerated. How powerful was your Atari ST compared to other machines at the time versus the machines you work with these days compared to other machines available? Because I'm not even on a particularly new machine and from a powered off state I'm logged into Windows and starting applications within 5 seconds. And for example t…
Doesn't windows do a type of hibernate rather than a full shutdown.
I see someone mentioned that further down in this thread, but shutdown and reboots are similarly quick for all of my pc's. Even my 12 year old laptop (with SSD) boots Windows 10 in _well_ under a minute, and shuts down and reboots much faster.
I also have hibernation disabled, and I've never noticed some obviously large file that might be a hibernation state on my drives (even e.g. removing a drive after a shut down so there was no restart where it could've been deleted).
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your host machine is a real server (eg poweredge), itll do a selftest. This already takes tens of seconds. If you want fast bootup times, you need to be the BIOS. The example in the top post is stuff that either loads data off a flash chip (like a bios works) or a disk (requires some bootstrapping).
Newer Dells like the R640 take minutes to boot, not seconds. Here's a random video of a guy booting a R740, it takes 1:51 just to get into the bios: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSJNTdKdTJI
[deleted]
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have not conducted a survey, but they strike me as reasonably common desires. On a 4-5 hour road trip, I want to take the kids to see a castle or something somewhere around 1/2 to 3/4 of the way. Even just wanting to have lunch somewhere other than Hilton Park or Newport Pagnell would be such a use case. I have also wanted it for visiting someone - I'm going to their house, what is my most convenient option for buy…
I think there is an anti-car bias in Google Maps and similar services. Everything is oriented around the model of "reserve a hotel", "reserve a flight", like you really are on rails like a European. Today's online maps aren't up to the freedom that motorists have to make small deviations from a route. For instance if I drive from here to Boston I am likely to stay at a hotel en-route, that could be anywhere from Alba…
Google is in the directory business. Ultimately they don't want us to make the most informed decision, they want us to "feel lucky" and trust The Algorithm. Because the more we "feel lucky", the bigger the fear of businesses to get punished by The Algorithm for insufficient ad spending.
That's why desktop web search is less valuable to Google than mobile web search, mobile web search is less valuable to them than map search, map search is less valuable than voice search and voice search while driving is their holy grail because there the ranking game is completely winner takes all. A second page hit on desktop has a better chance at getting traffic than the second place overall in voice while driving. (And those sweet "while driving" hits will almost always be followed by actual business transactions, whereas the old desktop is just a mostly worthless page view)
Afaik Google is far from allowing businesses to directly bid for that coveted number slot (it would ruin their ability to keep the balance between attracting advertisers and attracting eyeballs), but the result is even better for them: when businesses "bid by proxy", via buying other ad products in hope/fear that it might be a factor in the ranking they don't just get the winner's money. I'd absolutely say that drivers are very high on Google's audience priority list, it's just that nobody on that list is a customer.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of this is absolutely no excuse for the ridiculously high latency everywhere now. Want to give me fancy autocorrect? Fine. But first: * Make a UI with instant feedback, which doesn't wait on your autocorrect * Give me exact results instantly before your autocorrect kicks in * Run your fancy slow stuff in the background if resources are available * Update results when you get them... if I didn't hit "enter" and go…
Windows 10 search and macOS's spotlight do something like this. It's irritating when results reorder themselves milliseconds before I hit enter. Either way I'm not sure it rises to the level of indignation shown here.
The only thing Windows 10 UI rises to is a paragon of lagginess - and I say that about the UI I generally like, and one that runs on 10-year-old equipment just fine.
There's no good reason for a lag after hitting the "Start" button.
There's no good reason for a lag in the right-mouse-button context menu in Explorer (this was a "feature" since Windows 95, however).
I could go on for a long time, but let's just say that Win+R notepad is still the fastest way to start that program, because at least Win+R menu wasn't made pretty and slow (but still has history of some sorts).
The search box behaves in truly mysterious ways. All I want it to do is bring up a list of programs whose name contains the substring that I just typed. It's not a task that should take more than a screen refresh, much more so in 2019. And yet, I still have no clue what it actually does - if it works at all[1].
[1]https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-windows-10-start-menu-sea...
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
I discovered this by myself - I mean, the search button is right there! I must have been in the middle of a trip & searched for something, which pops up an "Add Stop" button. I think it's pretty discoverable.
I'm glad you discovered this, but let's look at a strawman grandma: "the search bar is where you type where you want to go, therefore if I search, it will turn off my current navigation / reroute my destination to whatever I am searching for". The above is not a foregone conclusion, but it was how I thought until I read your and parent's postings about it, and I'm a techie. For every 1 techie that doesn't know about…
I'm specifically referring to the Google Maps mobile app - it doesn't have a search bar, but has buttons that come and go depending on your current context. If a button is visible in your context, you can bet it works in that context. As an example, the layer, compass and search buttons are present when you're not navigating, but once you start, the layer and compass buttons are replaced by the audio chatiness button. The search button is still present, and the implication is that its usable in my current context: that's great discoverability in my book.
Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The boot sequence, all the way to a desktop with a mouse that moves, takes less than one second. That's an exceptional case though - the GUI OS was hardwired in ROM. The Amiga was an otherwise comparable machine that had to load much of the OS from disk, and it did take its time to boot to desktop.
Even when the OS was loaded off of a hard drive, the boot time was still about 2-3 seconds (I did measure this). Not really exceptional. It took maybe a minute to load off floppy disk. That is STILL shorter than the POST time for every machine I work with these days, with the possible exception of the Raspberry Pi in the closet.
Are the post times modifiable?
I'm using a Dell E7440 and it's pretty quick to boot from powered off. I have a bunch of stuff turned off in the bios. It's my machine on my home network, it's not a corporate machine with all the corporate stuff.
But maybe that's the lever we need to get change: 30 seconds extra for 1000 people over 250 working days a year is over 2000 person hours being spent waiting for machines to boot.
And that wait time for the corporate stuff is something that real people talk about. Here are a few twitter threads about people in different NHS organisations.
Some people are waiting 3 to 10 minutes, a few are waiting even longer(!!) https://twitter.com/griffglen/status/1066043840497360897?s=2...
https://twitter.com/bengoldacre/status/1038329028623716358?s...
https://twitter.com/dannyjpalmer/status/1123604293251158016?...