6 ms·

The annoying thing is this is what mac was famous for, for a long time. Often, the price would give you considerable lower specs than a PC, but the mac would b

The annoying thing is this is what mac was famous for, for a long time. Often, the price would give you considerable lower specs than a PC, but the mac would be faster to desktop, faster to start working in an application, smoother IU, longer battery life, etc. Focus on macs used to be "faster to work with, not faster to calculate with" It was those things that warranted the higher price tag.

pjmlp 6y ago
Surely not during classical Mac OS days. Working on those LC II was more of a need that nothing else was available at the computer lab than anything else.
- rjsw 6y ago
  A Quadra 950 feels fast running old Mac OS applications.
  - antonyh 6y ago
    I concur. Booted up my G4 this week, on OS9. Feels so much faster than anything released this century. So much so, I'm keeping it as an air-gapped word processor. Modern computers, SSDs, super fast RAM, GPUs etc, all needed for computing. But the older machines with outdated hardware, low and slow RAM, and tiny slow PATA or SCSI HDDs feel so fast. I don't doubt that the Quadra feels just as quick. It's not just Apple, same goes for Windows of the same pre-Y2K era compared to now. The question is why. Why is the user experience so poor. Why is it all so sluggish now. Have we exchanged performance for developer convenience just to punt out more underperforming software? Is the art of creating fast UI code dying out? Is the shift from C/C++ to Swift/.net interpreted bytecode-type solutions the cause? Too many layers of abstraction, too much cross-platform code with compromises to make it run anywhere? Whatever it is, we're churning out software quicker now but on faster hardware it runs worse than the older tools. It feels backwards to me.
    - chooseaname 6y ago
      > The question is why. Why is the user experience so poor. Why is it all so sluggish now. Have we exchanged performance for developer convenience just to punt out more underperforming software? Generally speaking, yes. We prioritize speed to market over everything always.
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        Why? I can maybe understand it in the early experimental phase, but there ought to be a point where the software's authors go back and do it properly. It's worth the effort! If one application is significantly more responsive, people will think it feels nicer to use.
        WalterSear 6y ago
        Because speed to market equals speed to market dominance.
    - mycall 6y ago
      > The question is why. Simple answer: Abstractions.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Not when measured against PCs or graphical UNIX workstations of the same age.
    - rjsw 6y ago
      You couldn't run Mac OS applications on a PC or UNIX workstation. The point is that older Mac software was written to run well on the hardware. WriteNow on the Q950 is particularly fast. I haven't run any benchmarks but I would expect the Q950 to be comparable to an early SUN SPARCstation, the Q950 has more RAM too. I do run NetBSD on both of them.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        I thought we were comparing platforms over here, that was the whole point of my remark regarding the LC II usage at the computer lab.
zozbot234 6y ago
> Often, the price would give you considerable lower specs than a PC, but the mac would be faster to desktop, faster to start working in an application, smoother IU, longer battery life, etc. Focus on macs used to be "faster to work with, not faster to calculate with" Linux is the new Mac, then. It's really fast even on otherwise low-end hardware, and the price tag is pretty hard to beat.
- mmargerum 6y ago
  How is power management these days on laptops? That was my biggest issue with Linux. I'd like to run it on one of my older macs.
  - yaantc 6y ago
    Make sure TLP is installed, and it should be fine. I'm using mainstream laptops (Thinkpad, Latitude) and with TLP I have a better battery life with Linux than with Windows 10. https://linrunner.de/tlp/ https://linrunner.de/tlp/
- tomxor 6y ago
  > Linux is the new Mac As a Linux desktop convert I find it hard to disagree. I used and owned macs from the 68k through PPC and one intel (C2D), they were all fast (to use), that last intel one from 2009 still felt slick... but that's where it stopped for me, everything got super bloated and slow afterwards. I may not be 100% correct here but it seems like most of the problems are with their OS and software, which is a shame because they are the only remaining computer company that has retained control over all of their hardware and software - something that should have always given them an edge in fine tuning, but they seem to be throwing it all away.
  - eitland 6y ago
    FWIW I wrote this on my blog the other day which supports your observations from another angle: > I have seen developers starting to use Linux machines for a few years already. It kind of reminds me of how it felt like when devs started to adopt Macs around 2005/2006 or so when Ruby on Rails became popular. And just like when Macs became popular, mainstream adoption seems to follow: I've already seen a sales guy running Ubuntu Linux (by his own choice) over a year ago. Note: the driving forces aren't exactly the same, but the feeling is reasonably similar in my opinion. Also I should note that the adoption of Linux among sales and other non-devs has surprised me.
mmargerum 6y ago
I guess you never used the original Mac
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Oh come now, that's not fair. GP was talking about ten years ago, not 30.
  - mmargerum 6y ago
    Yeh I know heh. Was a joke. You will have to pry this macbook pro from my cold dead hands.
scarface74 6y ago
This is definitely not true. Macs were much slower UI wise than PCs. Most PCs came bundled with graphics cards. Most Macs used integrated graphics. It was especially bad in the 90s.

pjmlp 6y ago

Surely not during classical Mac OS days. Working on those LC II was more of a need that nothing else was available at the computer lab than anything else.

rjsw 6y ago
A Quadra 950 feels fast running old Mac OS applications.
- antonyh 6y ago
  I concur. Booted up my G4 this week, on OS9. Feels so much faster than anything released this century. So much so, I'm keeping it as an air-gapped word processor. Modern computers, SSDs, super fast RAM, GPUs etc, all needed for computing. But the older machines with outdated hardware, low and slow RAM, and tiny slow PATA or SCSI HDDs feel so fast. I don't doubt that the Quadra feels just as quick. It's not just Apple, same goes for Windows of the same pre-Y2K era compared to now. The question is why. Why is the user experience so poor. Why is it all so sluggish now. Have we exchanged performance for developer convenience just to punt out more underperforming software? Is the art of creating fast UI code dying out? Is the shift from C/C++ to Swift/.net interpreted bytecode-type solutions the cause? Too many layers of abstraction, too much cross-platform code with compromises to make it run anywhere? Whatever it is, we're churning out software quicker now but on faster hardware it runs worse than the older tools. It feels backwards to me.
  - chooseaname 6y ago
    > The question is why. Why is the user experience so poor. Why is it all so sluggish now. Have we exchanged performance for developer convenience just to punt out more underperforming software? Generally speaking, yes. We prioritize speed to market over everything always.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      Why? I can maybe understand it in the early experimental phase, but there ought to be a point where the software's authors go back and do it properly. It's worth the effort! If one application is significantly more responsive, people will think it feels nicer to use.
      - WalterSear 6y ago
        Because speed to market equals speed to market dominance.
  - mycall 6y ago
    > The question is why. Simple answer: Abstractions.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Not when measured against PCs or graphical UNIX workstations of the same age.
  - rjsw 6y ago
    You couldn't run Mac OS applications on a PC or UNIX workstation. The point is that older Mac software was written to run well on the hardware. WriteNow on the Q950 is particularly fast. I haven't run any benchmarks but I would expect the Q950 to be comparable to an early SUN SPARCstation, the Q950 has more RAM too. I do run NetBSD on both of them.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      I thought we were comparing platforms over here, that was the whole point of my remark regarding the LC II usage at the computer lab.

zozbot234 6y ago

> Often, the price would give you considerable lower specs than a PC, but the mac would be faster to desktop, faster to start working in an application, smoother IU, longer battery life, etc. Focus on macs used to be "faster to work with, not faster to calculate with" Linux is the new Mac, then. It's really fast even on otherwise low-end hardware, and the price tag is pretty hard to beat.

mmargerum 6y ago
How is power management these days on laptops? That was my biggest issue with Linux. I'd like to run it on one of my older macs.
- yaantc 6y ago
  Make sure TLP is installed, and it should be fine. I'm using mainstream laptops (Thinkpad, Latitude) and with TLP I have a better battery life with Linux than with Windows 10. https://linrunner.de/tlp/ https://linrunner.de/tlp/
tomxor 6y ago
> Linux is the new Mac As a Linux desktop convert I find it hard to disagree. I used and owned macs from the 68k through PPC and one intel (C2D), they were all fast (to use), that last intel one from 2009 still felt slick... but that's where it stopped for me, everything got super bloated and slow afterwards. I may not be 100% correct here but it seems like most of the problems are with their OS and software, which is a shame because they are the only remaining computer company that has retained control over all of their hardware and software - something that should have always given them an edge in fine tuning, but they seem to be throwing it all away.
- eitland 6y ago
  FWIW I wrote this on my blog the other day which supports your observations from another angle: > I have seen developers starting to use Linux machines for a few years already. It kind of reminds me of how it felt like when devs started to adopt Macs around 2005/2006 or so when Ruby on Rails became popular. And just like when Macs became popular, mainstream adoption seems to follow: I've already seen a sales guy running Ubuntu Linux (by his own choice) over a year ago. Note: the driving forces aren't exactly the same, but the feeling is reasonably similar in my opinion. Also I should note that the adoption of Linux among sales and other non-devs has surprised me.

mmargerum 6y ago

I guess you never used the original Mac

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Oh come now, that's not fair. GP was talking about ten years ago, not 30.
- mmargerum 6y ago
  Yeh I know heh. Was a joke. You will have to pry this macbook pro from my cold dead hands.

scarface74 6y ago

This is definitely not true. Macs were much slower UI wise than PCs. Most PCs came bundled with graphics cards. Most Macs used integrated graphics. It was especially bad in the 90s.