4 ms·

We've even managed to slow down things like Excel 97. I played with a 486 laptop recently, and was completely amazed at how fast things like Word felt (once the

We've even managed to slow down things like Excel 97. I played with a 486 laptop recently, and was completely amazed at how fast things like Word felt (once they'd loaded off the ancient hard disk). The most immediately notable part was the typing, which felt completely instantaneous. I haven't found out exactly why, but the switch from serial to USB keyboard interfaces (and the lag therein) as well as the various windowing pipeline "improvements" over the years seem to be in the mix.

gugagore 9y ago
on PCs, keyboards were never "serial" as in "the serial port"(mice were), but they were always "serial" in the same way that the USB port is "serial". Perhaps it's better said that the switch from a special-purpose interface to USB is what introduced lag.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  I know on microcontrollers, if you want to reduce jitter (by sometimes up to a magnitude), you disable USB. Ive noticed my interrupt loops on ARMs go way down when the micro doesn't have to service USB. But then you have to use an STLink to upload programs.
nextos 9y ago
Old PS/2 keyboards are faster than USB because they were based on interrupts. That said, I think the cause underlying perceived low speed on modern platforms is more a bloat and inefficiency problem. Things are totally out of control. The PS/2 slight advantage over USB is an anecdote.
PeachPlum 9y ago
The Word processor on my 8 Bit Computer (BBC Micro) is ready to type into about 2 seconds from when I switch the power on.
freyir 9y ago
Relevant post on keyboard latency here: https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ Takeaway: today’s keyboards are slow. Even gaming keyboards marketed as fast are slow. There’s more latency just in today’s keyboards than the entire end-to-end latency in an Apple II system from 1977.
stuaxo 9y ago
There were recently some benchmarks of USB keyboards and they all add quite a lot of latency, even the so called gaming keyboards.

gugagore 9y ago

on PCs, keyboards were never "serial" as in "the serial port"(mice were), but they were always "serial" in the same way that the USB port is "serial". Perhaps it's better said that the switch from a special-purpose interface to USB is what introduced lag.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago
I know on microcontrollers, if you want to reduce jitter (by sometimes up to a magnitude), you disable USB. Ive noticed my interrupt loops on ARMs go way down when the micro doesn't have to service USB. But then you have to use an STLink to upload programs.

nextos 9y ago

Old PS/2 keyboards are faster than USB because they were based on interrupts. That said, I think the cause underlying perceived low speed on modern platforms is more a bloat and inefficiency problem. Things are totally out of control. The PS/2 slight advantage over USB is an anecdote.

PeachPlum 9y ago

The Word processor on my 8 Bit Computer (BBC Micro) is ready to type into about 2 seconds from when I switch the power on.

freyir 9y ago

Relevant post on keyboard latency here: https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ Takeaway: today’s keyboards are slow. Even gaming keyboards marketed as fast are slow. There’s more latency just in today’s keyboards than the entire end-to-end latency in an Apple II system from 1977.

stuaxo 9y ago

There were recently some benchmarks of USB keyboards and they all add quite a lot of latency, even the so called gaming keyboards.