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I am seriously considering going back to desktop computers

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Re: I am seriously considering going back to desktop computers

#2

Post by ecpottinger »

I notice the lack of user input/output options. USB requires you to jump thru hoops to use it and does not give the constance bandwidth I got with older ports that the CPU could bit-bang.

Today I have multi-GigaHertz machines that I can't build the simple projects that I could use with my Amigas because I have no way to interface directly to the buss.

The latency of what present computer supplies is horrible.

Re: I am seriously considering going back to desktop computers

#4

Post by lukehutch »

ecpottinger wrote: post #2

I notice the lack of user input/output options. USB requires you to jump thru hoops to use it and does not give the constance bandwidth I got with older ports that the CPU could bit-bang. Today I have multi-GigaHertz machines that I can't build the simple projects that I could use with my Amigas because I have no way to interface directly to the buss. The latency of what present computer supplies is horrible.

These days the standard way to do this is to use a USB UART adapter, or a USB-connected Arduino, an Ethernet-connected Raspberry Pi, etc. -- they have GPIO ports, both analog and digital, as well as I2C, SPI, etc etc. There are enormous numbers of options for motor controllers and sensors available off the shelf. You can bit bang all you want from your desktop computer, via this interface!

Re: I am seriously considering going back to desktop computers

#5

Post by geocrasher »

From the article: "What worries me as much as the end of general-purpose computing for the masses is that so few seem to understand that it is ending."

Correction: Has Ended. The vast majority of people using computers has shifted to phones and tablets. I have a friend who's a millenial who barely knows how to use his desktop PC (It's a Mac) but is fluent on his iPad/iPhone.

Most people are not content creators, they are consumers. The people who are still building their own PC's are mostly enthusiasts. There's no profit in building custom PC's anymore, so local computer shops aren't selling them (And if they are, it's at a hefty premium).

The author of the article calls the 1980's the "Golden era" of personal computing. I disagree. Networked computing is an amazing thing, but it's also been monetized and now the consumers are the product being sold. And happily so. The outliers are those who buy pre-2012 computers so they can skip UEFI and are happy to live under their rocks to do it. That's okay with me.

Personally I need a faster computer than that, so I'm stuck with UEFI and because W10 is the right OS for my needs, I'm stuck with it phoning home. This doesn't mean the golden age was in the 80's or 90's. It means that by the time we figured out how to make computing awesome, we also figured out how to make computing itself profitable, not just the computers. The golden age the could have been, never was.

Re: I am seriously considering going back to desktop computers

#7

Post by moonchild »

I don't understand the conflation of uefi with secure boot. Uefi can be independent of secure boot—I use uefi and have never enabled secure boot—the purpose of uefi was to consolidate definition and discovery of various bios-level APIs. Probing memory, setting video modes, and more; these things were poorly specified, and implementations frequently differed. Uefi is huge and overengineered, but it's still a definite improvement.

Re: I am seriously considering going back to desktop computers

#8

Post by jay_kyburz »

Over the last 10 years or so I have transitioned to having two big desktops, one at work and one at home, with with a large dropbox folder keeping them in sync. I found I just never needed to carry a laptop with me and could get better price / performance in desktop.

I do get a little nervous being without a computer when I'm on holiday 5-6 times a year, but in 25 years I've never actually had to do any emergency work while on holiday. I think the risk is very small.

Re: I am seriously considering going back to desktop computers

#9

Post by benlivengood »

geocrasher wrote: post #5

From the article: "What worries me as much as the end of general-purpose computing for the masses is that so few seem to understand that it is ending." Correction: Has Ended. The vast majority of people using computers has shifted to phones and tablets. I have a friend who's a millenial who barely knows how to use his desktop PC (It's a Mac) but is fluent on his iPad/iPhone. Most people are not content creators, they…

Android is still general purpose. I have Termux if I need to compile and run something. I can sideload APKs. I run Windows on desktop for newer games, but quite a few work on my Ubuntu laptop too.
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