5 ms·

Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm. You just hoped you hadn’t lost too much, would re-boot and go get a drink while you waited. Due

Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm. You just hoped you hadn’t lost too much, would re-boot and go get a drink while you waited. Due to that “training” I still hit CTRL-S obsessively even when it hasn’t been needed for years.

rob74 3y ago
Contrast that to today, when you have editors like Sublime Text which will reliably keep your editor tabs (or "buffers") around for as long as you need them, even if you never save them (yourself - of course the editor does that behind the scenes).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mbwgh 3y ago
For me, my Ctrl+S moment was with Apple's Writer, on my first Macbook back in 2005 or so. Lost a whole evening's worth of work due to a crash. I'm mostly in the `:w` camp now, but still...
- stavros 3y ago
  <Esc>:w is muscle memory by now, and it'll never change.
  - gcoakes 3y ago
    A quirk in my config that I haven't bothered to fix makes it so my formatter runs post write. I've unfortunately picked up the habit of <esc>:w<cr>:w<cr> in rapid succession.
    - stavros 3y ago
      Oof, my condolences. At least you make doubly sure it's saved.
LoganDark 3y ago
> I still hit CTRL-S obsessively Same here, but because I used to forget to save before tabbing over to something else that depended on the changes I made. Now I never forget to save...
- wanderingstan 3y ago
  Ah yes, I’ve had that too: I still wish editors would make it more visually apparent when you had unsaved changes.
accrual 3y ago
Initial versions of Windows 95 would crash if uptime exceeded 49.7 days. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28340101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28340101
- midasuni 3y ago
  This bug was never found because nobody managed to keep windows 95 up for more than 49.7 hours, let alone days!
Roark66 3y ago
>Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm. It certainly wasn't for me! At the time I had my first it job in a local pc repair shop and we had a series of 24h burn in tests. If the newly installed pc crashed during it, there was something wrong with the hw. My personal windows 95 definitely didn't crash more than once every few weeks of heavy use. Programs did crash, explorer did crash, but the actual BSOD was quite rare.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > My personal windows 95 definitely didn't crash more than once every few weeks of heavy use. You didn't need heavy use; there was a signed 32 bit integer bug that would cause W95/98 to lock up consistently every 31.5 days or so. You can load Windows 95 into a VM today and still get the same results every 31.5 days. [EDIT: 49.7 days]
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  I didn't get a lot of blue screens either. I did a lot of optimization on my systems. Not drastically hacking crap, just obsessively pruning unnecessary services and software etc. Registry cleanup tools. Etc. Also always had as much RAM as I could afford. I'm not sure if there was a correlation there but it sure felt like it. Seemed like folks with constant blue screens had PCs filled with crapware. Maybe the difference was purely hardware or, purely luck, I dunno.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  It was definitely the norm, but it seemed to have more to do with hardware and drivers and certain programs, so people's experiences varied dramatically. Sounds like you just happened to luck into reliable hardware with well-written drivers. For me, something about using CorelDraw with my video card led it to crash probably about once every twenty minutes of use. On the other hand, if I just stuck to working in Word and wasn't trying to simultaneously play MP3's while also downloading files, I'd be fine.
ptidhomme 3y ago
I still hit CTRL-S obsessively You better keep that habit when working in big MS Word files. It still randomly crashes and I've lost some amount of work several times due to this shit.
tombert 3y ago
> Due to that “training” I still hit CTRL-S obsessively even when it hasn’t been needed for years. Same. I psychotically hit cmd-S or :w after every line of text I write; there was one time my computer crashed and I lost my entire 4th grade book report because I didn't save. I didn't know how to touch type then, so it took forever for me to retype it. Never again!

rob74 3y ago

Contrast that to today, when you have editors like Sublime Text which will reliably keep your editor tabs (or "buffers") around for as long as you need them, even if you never save them (yourself - of course the editor does that behind the scenes).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mbwgh 3y ago

For me, my Ctrl+S moment was with Apple's Writer, on my first Macbook back in 2005 or so. Lost a whole evening's worth of work due to a crash. I'm mostly in the `:w` camp now, but still...

stavros 3y ago
<Esc>:w is muscle memory by now, and it'll never change.
- gcoakes 3y ago
  A quirk in my config that I haven't bothered to fix makes it so my formatter runs post write. I've unfortunately picked up the habit of <esc>:w<cr>:w<cr> in rapid succession.
  - stavros 3y ago
    Oof, my condolences. At least you make doubly sure it's saved.

LoganDark 3y ago

> I still hit CTRL-S obsessively Same here, but because I used to forget to save before tabbing over to something else that depended on the changes I made. Now I never forget to save...

wanderingstan 3y ago
Ah yes, I’ve had that too: I still wish editors would make it more visually apparent when you had unsaved changes.

accrual 3y ago

Initial versions of Windows 95 would crash if uptime exceeded 49.7 days. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28340101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28340101

midasuni 3y ago
This bug was never found because nobody managed to keep windows 95 up for more than 49.7 hours, let alone days!

Roark66 3y ago

>Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm. It certainly wasn't for me! At the time I had my first it job in a local pc repair shop and we had a series of 24h burn in tests. If the newly installed pc crashed during it, there was something wrong with the hw. My personal windows 95 definitely didn't crash more than once every few weeks of heavy use. Programs did crash, explorer did crash, but the actual BSOD was quite rare.

lelanthran 3y ago
> My personal windows 95 definitely didn't crash more than once every few weeks of heavy use. You didn't need heavy use; there was a signed 32 bit integer bug that would cause W95/98 to lock up consistently every 31.5 days or so. You can load Windows 95 into a VM today and still get the same results every 31.5 days. [EDIT: 49.7 days]
JohnBooty 3y ago
I didn't get a lot of blue screens either. I did a lot of optimization on my systems. Not drastically hacking crap, just obsessively pruning unnecessary services and software etc. Registry cleanup tools. Etc. Also always had as much RAM as I could afford. I'm not sure if there was a correlation there but it sure felt like it. Seemed like folks with constant blue screens had PCs filled with crapware. Maybe the difference was purely hardware or, purely luck, I dunno.
crazygringo 3y ago
It was definitely the norm, but it seemed to have more to do with hardware and drivers and certain programs, so people's experiences varied dramatically. Sounds like you just happened to luck into reliable hardware with well-written drivers. For me, something about using CorelDraw with my video card led it to crash probably about once every twenty minutes of use. On the other hand, if I just stuck to working in Word and wasn't trying to simultaneously play MP3's while also downloading files, I'd be fine.

ptidhomme 3y ago

I still hit CTRL-S obsessively You better keep that habit when working in big MS Word files. It still randomly crashes and I've lost some amount of work several times due to this shit.

tombert 3y ago

> Due to that “training” I still hit CTRL-S obsessively even when it hasn’t been needed for years. Same. I psychotically hit cmd-S or :w after every line of text I write; there was one time my computer crashed and I lost my entire 4th grade book report because I didn't save. I didn't know how to touch type then, so it took forever for me to retype it. Never again!