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Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

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Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#41

Post by serverQuestion »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #19
mfer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can easily setup a command line interface or Linux system and move blazing fast. Maybe the HN crowd can but not your average or median computer users > I remember turning on the computer and waiting for the motherboard company logo to finish flashing I still have computers that take some time to boot. Issue is, I just rarely power off/on. Instead the computers go to sleep which if much faster to come out of. Of…

Nah, I still can't set up a linux that's both graphical and feels snappy to this day.

could you do that in the past though?

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#43

Post by dahfizz »

stopads wrote: post #5

It boggles my mind how terrible the web is becoming on lower end connections. I have about 200ms of delay to most servers and about 5Mbit of bandwidth, and many major web pages take over 30 seconds to load if I don't block most of the assets. It's insane that webpages are now loading megabytes of data across hundreds of http requests before the images even start downloading. I've completely given up on the mobile web…

I think there is a serious culture problem in the web development world.

Web devs are obsessed with the fancy new frameworks that allow you to use even more JavaScript and somehow convince themselves that it's what users want.

And not only do the users get stuck downloading megabytes of JS, but now the client computer has to do all the calculation of putting the page together!

There is a strong aversion to simplicity. A single web server serving HTML is simple and fast and easy. But web devs want "new and interesting", users be damned. So we get huge kubernetes clusters running all sorts of useless junk just to serve huge JS payloads for no benefit.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#44

Post by lordleft »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #35

This post again with its ridiculous ranting examples. "This text searching program that searches text against text is way faster and simpler than a fully rendered, interactive map of the entire world with accurate roads and precision at the foot / meter level." No. Shit, really? Get out of town. Yes, some very popular apps have bad UX. But some apps have incredible UX. Cherry picking the bad ones while ignoring the g…

There's definitely some cherry-picking of history going on.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#45

Post by karatestomp »

TomBombadildoze wrote: post #6

Almost everything on computers is perceptually more rich, useful, and intuitive than it was in 1983.

Maybe than 1983 but versus 2003 the main positive changes have been greater bandwidth and storage. Everything else useful we have now we had then, pretty much. Some of it was a much slower, some of it was much faster. The only OS & environment I've seen that was significantly more intuitive than anything around in the 90s and 2000s is iOS up to version 7, at which point its intuitiveness started going to hell.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#46

Post by burntoutfire »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #35

This post again with its ridiculous ranting examples. "This text searching program that searches text against text is way faster and simpler than a fully rendered, interactive map of the entire world with accurate roads and precision at the foot / meter level." No. Shit, really? Get out of town. Yes, some very popular apps have bad UX. But some apps have incredible UX. Cherry picking the bad ones while ignoring the g…

Most of the old nonsense you listed is specific to PCs. Amigas (for example) were much friendlier.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#47

Post by svnpenn »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #35

This post again with its ridiculous ranting examples. "This text searching program that searches text against text is way faster and simpler than a fully rendered, interactive map of the entire world with accurate roads and precision at the foot / meter level." No. Shit, really? Get out of town. Yes, some very popular apps have bad UX. But some apps have incredible UX. Cherry picking the bad ones while ignoring the g…

> Remember endless configuration to get one program working? Remember the computer just throwing its hands up and giving up when you gave it input that wasn't exactly what it expected? Remember hardware compatibility issues and how badly it affected system stability? Remember when building a computer required work and research and took hours?

Literally all of these are still a thing...

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#48

Post by gridlockd »

ergothus wrote: post #4

> almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 .... amber-screen library computer in 1998: type in two words and hit F3. search results appear instantly. .... now: type in two words, wait for an AJAX popup. get a throbber for five seconds. oops you pressed a key, your results are erased So we start with something 15 years AFTER the title as evidence of the "good" times, then make a vague…

> ...there's no actual evidence in this article, and it comes across as a rant and selective nostalgia.

You're saying that as if somehow that was a problem, but it's not.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#49

Post by emptyparadise »

dayvid wrote: post #12

I remember turning on the computer and waiting for the motherboard company logo to finish flashing. After that was the Windows logo. I also remember waiting for the dial-up modem to connect to the internet and waiting hours for a video to download. Heck, last week I played a game streaming on GeForceNow and I was surprised by how seamless the whole experience was. Maybe some web apps are inconvenient, but you can eas…

A single longer wait is much better than constant tiny interruptions. I'd gladly wait for 10 minutes for my computer to boot up if it means that I get a seamless experience afterwards.

Of course, your point about connection speeds is entirely right - but I don't think anybody would honestly advocate just entirely going back to 56k. Rather, we really should be trying to answer the question of why using a computer feels much more sluggish (probably a better word to use than slow) than it did back in the day.

Yes, some of it is rose-tinted glasses and nostalgia, but most of what people discuss is worth taking into consideration. Nobody would seriously go and use a 20 year old computer unless they were making a statement of some sorts - and that statement is not "20 year old technology is entirely better than what we have today" but rather "why can't modern technology do things this 20 year old device can?"

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#50

Post by [deleted] »

soulofmischief wrote: post #15
dayvid wrote: post #12

I remember turning on the computer and waiting for the motherboard company logo to finish flashing. After that was the Windows logo. I also remember waiting for the dial-up modem to connect to the internet and waiting hours for a video to download. Heck, last week I played a game streaming on GeForceNow and I was surprised by how seamless the whole experience was. Maybe some web apps are inconvenient, but you can eas…

> you can easily setup a command line interface or Linux system and move blazing fast Well... not really. Terminal response times are way slower than they used to be in the 80's. Sure, we have greater throughput, but we also have greater latency. https://danluu.com/term-latency/

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