4 ms·

> My friggin circa 1984 Mac Plus felt faster on most stuff than the generic desktop PC See how fast it felt. https://youtu.be/XwbrCYJcrKQ?t=4m34s https://yout

> My friggin circa 1984 Mac Plus felt faster on most stuff than the generic desktop PC See how fast it felt. https://youtu.be/XwbrCYJcrKQ?t=4m34s https://youtu.be/XwbrCYJcrKQ?t=4m34s No way and NO HOW! That statement is 100% false. The issue is you remember that it felt fast. My Amiga felt like lightening to me in 1985 and I still boot it up from time to time. The delays in everything is over the top and Mac 128k were horribly slow.

bitwize 9y ago
You're confusing throughput with latency. Those old systems were objectively more responsive because the keyboard and mouse were tied directly to high-priority IRQs which were serviced in the OS. Now we have USB keyboards and mice, which go on the same IRQ lines as every other USB device, and even if the OS could service them specially, it doesn't. So keyboard and mouse events go on a queue of things to do: disk accesses, network packets, etc. And the whole system feels slower because of the time lag between you sending a command to the machine via kb or mouse, and the machine actually receiving it.
- barbs 9y ago
  Oh come on, there's no way you can tell the difference in latency between a mouse of that era and a USB mouse today. Surely there's enough demand in the e-sports scene to lower input latency as much as possible?
  - teddyh 9y ago
    It’s not that mouse pointers today are normally laggy; they aren’t, as you correctly say. But when a modern system is very busy, it’s normal for the keyboard and mouse input to lag too, but that wasn’t normally the case with older systems, since human input peripherals were typically given their own special higher priority interrupts or whatever. This was of course done because the systems back then were so slow that they would be in danger of regularly dropping key presses or clicks otherwise, which would have turned people off these newfangled electronic typewriters. But the result was that the interactive experience with respect to latency was given great importance in the design of those systems, unlike today, when it is taken for granted that people will accept whatever laggy system they are given, and will just be directed towards a CPU upgrade if they complain about it.
    - baldfat 9y ago
      Anything that is above a netbook or a sub $500 laptop doesn't lag and today's computers and phone are spoiling us. I have a 8 year old netbook and I run a minimal Linux install with a tiled window manager and it is quick. I also have an i5 Sandy-bridge desktop and I also work with a tiled window manager because I prefer it, but my wife has Windows 10 on the same computer and it is spot on and that is 6 years old. My video work station is blazing fast and it never lags on anything except chugging through 4K/8K video renders.
  - yangyang 9y ago
    I found this post about latency of input devices very interesting: https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/
  - hyperpape 9y ago
    Wouldn't count on it: https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/
  - retrogradeorbit 9y ago
    Have you actually used a computer from that era for any significant amount of time?
    - bitwize 9y ago
      Yes, an Amiga. And it ALWAYS responded instantly to mouse input at least. A Windows 3.1 PC from that era, not so much :)
fsloth 9y ago
I meant the Macintosh Plus, not the Macintosh 128k. I was off by a few years, the Mac Plus came in 1986. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Plus I think the example is a bit too sluggish but is probably a more correct presentation of the actual facts than my nostalgic outburst.
- baldfat 9y ago
  The delays of just writing a widow is so slow. Macintosh Plus Review https://youtu.be/_bI0moHdjPQ?t=22m29s https://youtu.be/_bI0moHdjPQ?t=22m29s I was an Amiga kid. I had friends and co-workers who had Macintosh Plus and they always seemed to be so S-L-O-W to an Amiga. Amiga 1000 from 1986 https://youtu.be/CDWdVk-hmgA?t=51s https://youtu.be/CDWdVk-hmgA?t=51s The window draws were also slow BUT Ray Tracing and full animation compared to that lame Macintosh is just a whole different generation. Amiga lost and it took till 1994 or 1995 to beat an Amiga in 1986.
  - fsloth 9y ago
    Oh gods, I was a kid in the 80:s and I was so envious of all my friends who had Amigas.
  - Veedrac 9y ago
    That did not look any less responsive than doing the same on LibreOffice on my high-end gaming laptop, with an SSD, and in many cases it looked more so. Of course, the newer one has newer graphics, but it also has enough transistors to replace each one in the 68k with a whole new 68k.

bitwize 9y ago

You're confusing throughput with latency. Those old systems were objectively more responsive because the keyboard and mouse were tied directly to high-priority IRQs which were serviced in the OS. Now we have USB keyboards and mice, which go on the same IRQ lines as every other USB device, and even if the OS could service them specially, it doesn't. So keyboard and mouse events go on a queue of things to do: disk accesses, network packets, etc. And the whole system feels slower because of the time lag between you sending a command to the machine via kb or mouse, and the machine actually receiving it.

barbs 9y ago
Oh come on, there's no way you can tell the difference in latency between a mouse of that era and a USB mouse today. Surely there's enough demand in the e-sports scene to lower input latency as much as possible?
- teddyh 9y ago
  It’s not that mouse pointers today are normally laggy; they aren’t, as you correctly say. But when a modern system is very busy, it’s normal for the keyboard and mouse input to lag too, but that wasn’t normally the case with older systems, since human input peripherals were typically given their own special higher priority interrupts or whatever. This was of course done because the systems back then were so slow that they would be in danger of regularly dropping key presses or clicks otherwise, which would have turned people off these newfangled electronic typewriters. But the result was that the interactive experience with respect to latency was given great importance in the design of those systems, unlike today, when it is taken for granted that people will accept whatever laggy system they are given, and will just be directed towards a CPU upgrade if they complain about it.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    Anything that is above a netbook or a sub $500 laptop doesn't lag and today's computers and phone are spoiling us. I have a 8 year old netbook and I run a minimal Linux install with a tiled window manager and it is quick. I also have an i5 Sandy-bridge desktop and I also work with a tiled window manager because I prefer it, but my wife has Windows 10 on the same computer and it is spot on and that is 6 years old. My video work station is blazing fast and it never lags on anything except chugging through 4K/8K video renders.
- yangyang 9y ago
  I found this post about latency of input devices very interesting: https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/
- hyperpape 9y ago
  Wouldn't count on it: https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/ https://danluu.com/keyboard-latency/
- retrogradeorbit 9y ago
  Have you actually used a computer from that era for any significant amount of time?
  - bitwize 9y ago
    Yes, an Amiga. And it ALWAYS responded instantly to mouse input at least. A Windows 3.1 PC from that era, not so much :)

fsloth 9y ago

I meant the Macintosh Plus, not the Macintosh 128k. I was off by a few years, the Mac Plus came in 1986. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Plus I think the example is a bit too sluggish but is probably a more correct presentation of the actual facts than my nostalgic outburst.

baldfat 9y ago
The delays of just writing a widow is so slow. Macintosh Plus Review https://youtu.be/_bI0moHdjPQ?t=22m29s https://youtu.be/_bI0moHdjPQ?t=22m29s I was an Amiga kid. I had friends and co-workers who had Macintosh Plus and they always seemed to be so S-L-O-W to an Amiga. Amiga 1000 from 1986 https://youtu.be/CDWdVk-hmgA?t=51s https://youtu.be/CDWdVk-hmgA?t=51s The window draws were also slow BUT Ray Tracing and full animation compared to that lame Macintosh is just a whole different generation. Amiga lost and it took till 1994 or 1995 to beat an Amiga in 1986.
- fsloth 9y ago
  Oh gods, I was a kid in the 80:s and I was so envious of all my friends who had Amigas.
- Veedrac 9y ago
  That did not look any less responsive than doing the same on LibreOffice on my high-end gaming laptop, with an SSD, and in many cases it looked more so. Of course, the newer one has newer graphics, but it also has enough transistors to replace each one in the 68k with a whole new 68k.