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And kids these days think that Firefox taking up 8G of RAM is perfectly fine. The site seems responsive, even though HN must be generating a fair bit of traffi

And kids these days think that Firefox taking up 8G of RAM is perfectly fine. The site seems responsive, even though HN must be generating a fair bit of traffic. It's quite impressive what that little machine is doing. I had a ZX81, with 1k of memory. After university I went to work as an accountant. So, mid- to late- 80's. The firm was going all techie, and some of the accountants were issued laptops. I was astounded to learn that the laptop contained the required software and was capable of storing the client's data. It gives me inspiration to keep pressing ahead with my RP2040 retro-computer. Little update: in the early 90's I started my PhD and did a little computer lab assistance work. One class was a bunch of nurse trainees. Floppies were ideal for storing their work on. They also made great coffee mats. I suggested that perhaps the floppies should be treated with a bit more love and care than that. Privately I mused what would happen if I fell ill, I jokingly wondered what treatment I would receive if I were a patient. The operation was a failure, but on the upside, he makes a great doorstop.

api 4y ago
Look into something called Geos for the Commodore 64. It’s a full Macintosh competitor GUI OS with apps on a 2mhz 8 bit machine with 64k of RAM. Yes it’s pretty minimal but things like it remind us just how wasteful so much of modern software is. A great deal of our bloat has reasonable explanations like a lot more data, lots more features, high DPI displays, etc but much of it is just lazy programming and too many layers of abstraction.
- einr 4y ago
  2mhz 1 MHz ;)
- bitwize 4y ago
  In the mid-1970s, a machine with 64k of RAM could support up to eight simultaneous users. And the apps were written in BASIC. That's how a lot of small businesses rolled with MAI Basic Four machines.
- themadturk 4y ago
  GEOS didn't run well at all without an external RAM pack. I had one, either 64K or 128K (no longer remember), and it ran great.
deleted 4y ago
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brabel 4y ago
A 286 PC was powerful enough for many people to use it as their workstation in the late 80's. My first PC was a 486, and it was already basically doing the same stuff we do today on a laptop, just with A LOT less memory and much lower screen resolution. It was very responsive too (except when trying to connect to the internet via the phone line)!

api 4y ago

Look into something called Geos for the Commodore 64. It’s a full Macintosh competitor GUI OS with apps on a 2mhz 8 bit machine with 64k of RAM. Yes it’s pretty minimal but things like it remind us just how wasteful so much of modern software is. A great deal of our bloat has reasonable explanations like a lot more data, lots more features, high DPI displays, etc but much of it is just lazy programming and too many layers of abstraction.

einr 4y ago
2mhz 1 MHz ;)
bitwize 4y ago
In the mid-1970s, a machine with 64k of RAM could support up to eight simultaneous users. And the apps were written in BASIC. That's how a lot of small businesses rolled with MAI Basic Four machines.
themadturk 4y ago
GEOS didn't run well at all without an external RAM pack. I had one, either 64K or 128K (no longer remember), and it ran great.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

brabel 4y ago

A 286 PC was powerful enough for many people to use it as their workstation in the late 80's. My first PC was a 486, and it was already basically doing the same stuff we do today on a laptop, just with A LOT less memory and much lower screen resolution. It was very responsive too (except when trying to connect to the internet via the phone line)!