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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)

#111

Post by toddmorey »

huebomont wrote: post #64
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…

Yes, I remember all these things, because they're almost all still a thing. But now with a shitty React front-end.

Pretend the modern web made computers worse and then try Figma in the browser. It's glorious. Granted it's not written in React but it really shows what the web can be. It's BETTER than any desktop equivalent I've tried. It requires zero installation. Plugins are added instantly. It has native collaboration. It's scary fast. I'm not at all nostalgic about the old days.

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

#112

Post by vectorEQ »

people went with HTTP and other shitty models. now we live with the pain. good for selling new hardware tho, so who really cares!

There could be tons done to still have our modern looks, but have old skool performance. issue is mainly in how we store and subsequently use data.

tons of people still use DOS era softwares just due to this very fact. their old programs they can perform the same work 1000 times faster due to how data is stored / presented. It generally doesn't go through 1000 layers of processing each click, and a lot of data is stored as a 'view', not some raw binary blob to be parsed out again on demand..

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

#113

Post by Arnt »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #105
Arnt wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes Google Maps bad? My computer in 1983 didn't have a map application at all, how can Google Maps possibly be bad compared to that? And if I had had a map application (I'm sure they existed) it would have taken several minutes to load from cassette tape. That's not faster than Google Maps, either perceptually or objectively.

The article explains all the ways that make Google Maps' UI bad. Your paper map or driver's atlas in 1983 offered better xref functionality. As they do in 2020, if you can still find them. Sure, hardware progressed in the past 40 years. CPUs are faster, storage is larger, we have a global network. But it's all irrelevant to the point that Google Maps UI is optimized for being a point-by-point nav/ad delivery tool, no…

I have several atlases and IMO they have considerable advantages over Google Maps. As does Google Maps over them. But none of that is relevant to the matter at hand: "Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than in 1983".

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

#114

Post by jws »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #30
soulofmischief wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/

Not really :) Consider a VT100. It could only go up to 19200 baud, and couldn't actually handle constant streams at that speed . However I do agree with the general message of the article. Current UX is a mess, websites are overblown by tons of javascript. There's no reason there should be loading spinners in this day and age with the power we have at our fingertips.

Consider a VT100. It could only go up to 19200 baud…

The VMS manuals suggested that system administrators may want to keep the hard wired terminals down to 2400 buad and hide the fact from users by turning on "smooth scroll" (which only scrolled about that fast anyway) in order to keep the interrupt load down on the Vax. Something about batching of interrupts on the multiport serial cards.

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

#115

Post by gridlockd »

ergothus wrote: post #72
gridlockd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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.

How so? The article is based on an assertion that directly counteracts my memories. I remember using computerized library card catalogs in the 80s. I remember using AltaVista in the 90s. I remember using the Up/Down/Left/Right navigation (and full-screen re-renders) in Mapquest pre-google maps. I remember using the cgi-bin version of imdb.com. I can see how promptly things work now. I can see the additional benefits…

> How so? The article is based on an assertion that directly counteracts my memories.

Human experience is subjective and one account is not invalidated by another.

> If the author makes an assertion that contradicts my experiences, they better provide SOME evidence, or be dismissed (which is presumably NOT their intent).

This is inconsequential.

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

#116

Post by shepardrtc »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #66
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…

Huh. I'd say the examples are perfectly good and on-point. While dealing with autoexec.bat and random BSODs wasn't fun, it's entirely orthogonal to the fact that a DOS-era POS still offers orders of magnitude better UX than current-era browser POSes, or than most web apps for that matter. It also doesn't change the fact that Google Maps is very bad at being a map . It's entire UI flow is oriented for giving turn-by-t…

> Huh. I'd say the examples are perfectly good and on-point. While dealing with autoexec.bat and random BSODs wasn't fun, it's entirely orthogonal to the fact that a DOS-era POS still offers orders of magnitude better UX than current-era browser POSes, or than most web apps for that matter.

What are you talking about? How in the world is a DOS that can only run a single app at a time better than a system that can run dozens of apps at once? How is non-multitasking a better experience? I remember DOS pretty well. I remember trying to configure Expanded Memory vs Extended Memory. Having to wait for dial-up to literally dial up the target machine.

Edit: I didn't realize the poster was talking about Point-of-Sale devices. So the above rant is aimed incorrectly.

> It also doesn't change the fact that Google Maps is very bad at being a map. It's entire UI flow is oriented for giving turn-by-turn directions for people who know where they are and where they are going;

That's exactly what it's made for.

> As someone who builds their own PC every couple years: it still does. It's actually worse now,

No way. Things just work nowadays. Operating Systems have generic drivers that work well. Its so much easier now to build a machine than it was years ago. I remember taking days to get something up and running, but now its minutes. Maybe an hour?

I really hate these "good old days" posts, no matter what the subject. The days of the past weren't better, there were just fewer choices.

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

#117

Post by geocrasher »

chooseaname wrote: post #69

I remember my BBS days, waiting minutes for stuff that happens instantly now. That being said, it is a bit of a shame that the faster computers get the more time the computer spends on fancy UI elements, etc.

"That being said, it is a bit of a shame that the faster computers get the more time the computer spends on fancy UI elements, etc."

Isn't that the point of faster computers? ;-)

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

#118

Post by therealdrag0 »

magduf wrote: post #101
TremendousJudge wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last printer I had to configure on my Linux machine required finding a downloading a hidden mystery bash script from the manufacturer's website and running it with root permissions. Not exactly "plug and play" or "safe"

Then you got the wrong printer. Some manufacturers do a good job of supporting Linux (HP is probably the best actually; their drivers all ship standard in most distros), others don't bother.

> Then you got the wrong printer. And so did your mom. Many printers can plug-n-play on windows.

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

#119

Post by miguelmota »

A problem with a lot of web apps today is that they are designed by visual designers that put a lot of emphasis into aesthetics and animations to make it 'stand out' rather focusing on user experience and keeping it dead plain and simple. This is why I love TUIs because they make use of all the screen real estate and all the possible actions are laid out on the screen to easily navigate.

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

#120

Post by flohofwoe »

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…

You forgot to mention that computers have become at least ten-thousand times faster in the meantime. There really isn't a single objective reason why we should wait for anything at all for longer than a few milliseconds on a modern computing device to happen. I actually think that this is just a sign that things are only optimized until they are "fast enough", and this "fast enough" threshold is a human attribute that doesn't change much over the decades.

PS: the usability problems you mention have been specifically problems of the PC platform in the mid- to late-90s (e.g. the hoops one had to jump through when starting a game on a PC was always extremely bizarre from the perspective of an Amiga or AtariST user, or even C64 user).

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