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Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

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Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#11

Post by Comevius »

_8ysf wrote: post #7
Comevius wrote: post #5

Hardware improvement slowed down considerably in the last 10 years. A Core i7-3970X from 2012 is still comparable to a typical notebook processor, or the fastest smartphone chips today, including the one in the Meta Quest Pro that was just announced. But imagine the same happening between 1992 and 2002. 10 years there meant fundamental incompatibility. A 486 computer with 8 MB RAM and VGA graphics card was already a…

> Hardware improvement slowed down considerably in the last 10 years. But somehow we keep changing smartphones and smart devices every 2 years or so. Is that just marketing, and the fact that older smartphones are obsolete because unsupported (and not because the hardware is not performant enough)? Also didn't hardware get smaller?

Even smartphones hit a point of diminishing returns after a while. A 5 years old Samsung Galaxy S8 would be still perfectly usable, and better than most cheap devices today, it's just unsupported, because go buy the new one. Fortunately you can slap a ROM on it and keep using it, you can even replace the battery. Unfortunately millions of these devices are already chilling on a landfill somewhere. It's not like we are running out of the resources to make new ones, or there is an environmental collapse looming around.

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#12

Post by _manifold »

Comevius wrote: post #5

Hardware improvement slowed down considerably in the last 10 years. A Core i7-3970X from 2012 is still comparable to a typical notebook processor, or the fastest smartphone chips today, including the one in the Meta Quest Pro that was just announced. But imagine the same happening between 1992 and 2002. 10 years there meant fundamental incompatibility. A 486 computer with 8 MB RAM and VGA graphics card was already a…

>But to answer your question if we would have been stuck with 1992 technology the internet would have evolved differently, and mainframes would play a much bigger role, to the point that your desktop computer would be just a thin client, running the latest amazing software accelerated by mainframe computers. You would submit jobs from your computer, the mainframe would calculate it and get back to you.

We're kind of getting back to this in a roundabout way, with more and more programs and services being run as web applications in a browser, or otherwise being inseparably tied into cloud technology/storage (looking at you, Adobe.)

With the advent of AI tools that require significant GPU hardware to run there may actually be a legitimate basis for it, but in general it just seems an excuse for companies to have their own tightly-controlled ecosystem which can be continually monetized and exploited.

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#13

Post by kjellsbells »

_manifold wrote: post #12
Comevius wrote: post #5

Hardware improvement slowed down considerably in the last 10 years. A Core i7-3970X from 2012 is still comparable to a typical notebook processor, or the fastest smartphone chips today, including the one in the Meta Quest Pro that was just announced. But imagine the same happening between 1992 and 2002. 10 years there meant fundamental incompatibility. A 486 computer with 8 MB RAM and VGA graphics card was already a…

>But to answer your question if we would have been stuck with 1992 technology the internet would have evolved differently, and mainframes would play a much bigger role, to the point that your desktop computer would be just a thin client, running the latest amazing software accelerated by mainframe computers. You would submit jobs from your computer, the mainframe would calculate it and get back to you. We're kind of…

It always strikes me as ironic that the PC won over the mainframe because it was your capital-P Personal Computer, not a terminal that simply ran what the high priests in the mainframe room told you you could run, and now the PC is anything but yours to control.

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#14

Post by lwansbrough »

_8ysf wrote: post #9
jerojero wrote: post #6

Just want to say that Discord and Slack do not solve the exact same problem as IRC. And here lies one of the most difficult aspects of protocols versus programs, protocols are much slower to adapt. Discord allows for a ton of functionalities that are not possible natively through IRC and it is a mistake to dismiss them. On the other hand, discord and slack offer pretty much the same things that we already had with MS…

> Discord and Slack do not solve the exact same problem as IRC. [...] Voice messages, image sharing, custom emotes, group chats, etc, etc. Sure, but you could always share http links to images. IRC had private messages, too, and e.g. Matrix' group chats (or even private chats) are "rooms", i.e. IRC channels. Not sure how important custom emotes are, and you could share an http link to a meme. I don't think those are…

Loading random URLs isn’t a great idea no.

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#15

Post by _8ysf »

lwansbrough wrote: post #14
_8ysf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Discord and Slack do not solve the exact same problem as IRC. [...] Voice messages, image sharing, custom emotes, group chats, etc, etc. Sure, but you could always share http links to images. IRC had private messages, too, and e.g. Matrix' group chats (or even private chats) are "rooms", i.e. IRC channels. Not sure how important custom emotes are, and you could share an http link to a meme. I don't think those are…

Loading random URLs isn’t a great idea no.

Because your Slack preview is not loading random URLs, I suppose?

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#16

Post by ajb »

_8ysf wrote: post #7
Comevius wrote: post #5

Hardware improvement slowed down considerably in the last 10 years. A Core i7-3970X from 2012 is still comparable to a typical notebook processor, or the fastest smartphone chips today, including the one in the Meta Quest Pro that was just announced. But imagine the same happening between 1992 and 2002. 10 years there meant fundamental incompatibility. A 486 computer with 8 MB RAM and VGA graphics card was already a…

> Hardware improvement slowed down considerably in the last 10 years. But somehow we keep changing smartphones and smart devices every 2 years or so. Is that just marketing, and the fact that older smartphones are obsolete because unsupported (and not because the hardware is not performant enough)? Also didn't hardware get smaller?

Even if the processor continued to work, the flash storage and battery in these devices aren't going to keep working forever. If we want to have longer lived devices, these parts will need to be standardised and user-replaceable

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#17

Post by cercatrova »

_manifold wrote: post #12
Comevius wrote: post #5

Hardware improvement slowed down considerably in the last 10 years. A Core i7-3970X from 2012 is still comparable to a typical notebook processor, or the fastest smartphone chips today, including the one in the Meta Quest Pro that was just announced. But imagine the same happening between 1992 and 2002. 10 years there meant fundamental incompatibility. A 486 computer with 8 MB RAM and VGA graphics card was already a…

>But to answer your question if we would have been stuck with 1992 technology the internet would have evolved differently, and mainframes would play a much bigger role, to the point that your desktop computer would be just a thin client, running the latest amazing software accelerated by mainframe computers. You would submit jobs from your computer, the mainframe would calculate it and get back to you. We're kind of…

Or startups like Mighty.app where, if your computer is too slow to run Chrome, just stream Chrome from the cloud. I just...don't even know what to say.

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#18

Post by jbverschoor »

lwansbrough wrote: post #14
_8ysf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Discord and Slack do not solve the exact same problem as IRC. [...] Voice messages, image sharing, custom emotes, group chats, etc, etc. Sure, but you could always share http links to images. IRC had private messages, too, and e.g. Matrix' group chats (or even private chats) are "rooms", i.e. IRC channels. Not sure how important custom emotes are, and you could share an http link to a meme. I don't think those are…

Loading random URLs isn’t a great idea no.

There were many custom services and bots. It could really have an image download +preview transformer bot/middleware

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#19

Post by lovich »

jerojero wrote: post #6

Just want to say that Discord and Slack do not solve the exact same problem as IRC. And here lies one of the most difficult aspects of protocols versus programs, protocols are much slower to adapt. Discord allows for a ton of functionalities that are not possible natively through IRC and it is a mistake to dismiss them. On the other hand, discord and slack offer pretty much the same things that we already had with MS…

> Websites are bloated and they are dozens of megabytes on a lot of crap that doesn't really offer any tangible benefit to the end user.

How many companies care about creating a tangible benefit for the end user? Tangible benefits for the end user are only valuable in opening a new market or defending existing market share. Once you’ve got enough market share and a sizeable moat, there’s no reason not to start shoving in features that are bad to neutral for your user, but provide value to the company. Hence every new service starting ad free and then adding an ad tier or increasing the number of ads once they are established

Re: Ask HN: How would software look if hardware had stopped improving long ago?

#20

Post by quickthrower2 »

> We would not have cryptocurrencies or NFTs

Yes we would - that doesn't need much hardware at all. Maybe 1998 hardware (Pentium II type thing) at most? Bearing in mind security algorithms used would be scaled down anyway to suit the lower hardware in the hypothetical scenario, and hash rate would of course be lower.

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