Thirty years ago is cheating. How about 15 years ago? I was doing everything you describe as part of my daily computer use (a few browser windows open, a text

Thirty years ago is cheating. How about 15 years ago? I was doing everything you describe as part of my daily computer use (a few browser windows open, a text editor running, a multimedia player, an IM and mail client running, etc) and had the same performance and usability frustrations. The main difference is that if I render a video now, I'll do it in 4k instead of 640x480, and that if I download a game, it's 50GB instead of 500MB. But scalin in that direction is expected; my machine isn't any more stable, or anything that goes in the way of the examplea described in the article. If I showed my mobile phone to 2002 me, they'd be extremely impressed. If I showed the form factor and specs of my laptop, they'd be extremely impressed. But if I showed them how I use my desktop OS? The only cool thing would be Dropbox, I think.