4 ms·

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-sport

by 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 :)

by barbs 9y ago

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 :)