4 ms·

By your logic, a PII 400 MHz came in 1997 and you are running software that was released 4 years after that processor did. So instead of figuring out how to run

by vkaku 3y ago

By your logic, a PII 400 MHz came in 1997 and you are running software that was released 4 years after that processor did. So instead of figuring out how to run something that works very well, you're just ... complaining. I agree with the fact that I could be doing this exercise in DOS with 80 columns on whatever and see what is the best environment I can live with. I actually do have a productive DOS environment as well. And If I were doing that exercise, I'd be trying to see if I can add more stuff to it (PCPaint, DOSAMP etc.) to find out what works and what doesn't. And document it for the benefit of other people. What is stopping you from figuring out what works for your PII 400 MHz?

vel0city 3y ago
I'm just pointing out when you're crushing something's design specs by 10-1,000x it's no surprise it's snappy. Do the same with modern stuff and it'll still be pretty snappy. It's not like Office XP was some last optimized version and it's all bloat after that. Office XP could also be considered a massively bloated office suite itself.
- vkaku 3y ago
  The point is that old software and hardware are everyday usable. There are modern day software that do not suffer from the same performance issues as some of the other bloated ones. Albeit very few exist. One can always complain about things that don't work. Instead, look at everything that works well today - it is a very good way to bring usability back into perspective. The intent is in bringing computers way beyond their intended eras and keeping things running with them. The effort recognizes and acknowledges the mistakes done so that there is a course correction going forward. HTH.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    > There are modern day software that do not suffer from the same performance issues as some of the other bloated ones. Albeit very few exist. This is what I'm saying though. You're suggesting modern software is all a bloated mess, unlike all this well-polished and optimized software they used to make. But you're only suggesting the old stuff doesn't suffer performance problems because you're going over the recommended specs 10-1,000x. Do the same with modern software, and suddenly its not so bloated now is it? Back in the day when Office XP released it was the bloated modern software unlike that well-polished and optimized software they used to make. You're just drawing arbitrary lines of computing hardware and software to say "this is bloated, this isn't". The requirements of Office 2000 was a 75MHz CPU, 16MB of RAM, and 189MB disk space. Office XP's minimum requirements were a 133MHz CPU, 32-128MB RAM, and 210MB disk space. Additional instance of an Office app also went from only needing 4MB RAM to needing 8MB RAM. Nearly 2x the resources, so incredibly bloated! I'm happy you're finding good use with the old hardware. Its good its serving your needs. I too tend to keep old computing hardware around until I no longer have any use for it, and even then I tend to sell it or give it to people who will actually use it instead of throwing it away. I've got some software I want to share with my kids, and it generally only runs well on like Windows 95 machines, so I actually am actively looking for some old hardware to run these educational games. So yeah, I'll be running an old Pentium III machine for them and it'll absolutely suit their needs. Sometimes a 10GHz 2TB RAM machine just isn't necessary for the task at hand, I agree. I'm just arguing the commentary about what is "bloated" and what isn't is ignoring a lot of other factors of what "bloated" really means. If you run something at way under the designed specs, you're going to have a bad time. If you run it with hardware that's 1,000x the design specs, its no surprise it runs fast. It doesn't mean the newer stuff is "bloated" while the old stuff wasn't, it was just designed for a different target in mind. And maybe for your needs, all you need is exactly what Office XP has. If all you're doing is putting letters on paper though, then Office XP is massively bloated compared to just using a typewriter. For me, most documents I work on are being worked on with cloud collaboration stuff, so tools like Office XP don't have anywhere near the features I need from an office suite. Is it still bloat then?
    - vkaku 3y ago
      I'm saying that software is getting bloated over time, and it needn't - if the idea is to keep software engineers employed, we could spend a few years doing a tick - increasing features and more years doing a tock - making things lean, efficient and sustainable. This is a very different idea, it's just like you said: 'finding good use with the old hardware'. This is a mindset, it is something that tries to keep systems alive while ensuring sustainability. Fixing broken hardware or softwre - This is what the post is about. As engineers, we should be realizing that there's tons of work lying around, and sustainability is a process and a goal. This is about recognizing how to put those efforts around it.
      - vel0city 3y ago
        > I'm saying that software is getting bloated over time, and it needn't But the "bloat" isn't just wasted space and resources; its often genuinely useful features. Your example with Office XP is a great example. We can look at just Word and compare it to even Word 2007. Its missing a lot of genuinely useful features. Its math equation builder is absolutely rudimentary and pretty bad compared to what is available in 2007. It doesn't show a live word count in the status bar. It doesn't offer the quick styles functionality. It lacks good bibliography and citation tools. Its document comparison engine is very rudimentary. It lacks a full screen reading mode. Its spell checker is extremely rudimentary. Are these additions just bloat? A contextual spell checker is going to use more CPU and RAM than just looking at whitespace and seeing if the word matches a database or hits a set of basic morphology rules, isn't? Handling a more complicated set of changes to do comparisons on is probably going to lead to a more complicated internal representation of the document, consuming more resources, isn't it? Having the processing and designs of the reading mode means the application is larger and consumes more ram, doesn't it? So its increasing the requirements by a good bit, but you're getting a lot of features along side it. Ah, but Office 2007, that's a bloated mess. But once again, if your standard is just putting black letters on a white page, why are you even bothering drawing colors to the screen? Aren't colors just bloat? Why have a screen at all? Just bloat. So yeah, does Word 2021 require a lot more resources to run than Office XP? Sure. It also does a whole hell of a lot more. Far better pen input with smart shapes, equations, and more. Far better dictation support. Even more enhanced contextual spelling/grammar tools along with a smart editor feature to give better critique. Better annotation and commenting tools. Better change tracking and comparison tools. Better collaboration features and live cloud syncing. New search tool to search settings, resources, help, and more. Accessibility checker tool helps find potential improvements to your documents like help adding alt-text and other things. Its not like Office 2021 is just the same thing as Office XP but now it needs at least a gigahertz and a few gigs of RAM. If that were the case, I'd agree its just bloat. But its got thousands and thousands of improvements and new features, all of which demand just a little bit more and a little bit more resources. Its unreasonable to expect for them to be able to shoehorn all the same features of Office 2021 into similar requirements of Office XP. And even then, picking Office XP is entirely arbitrary; why not hold them up to Office 95 as the standard of resources? If its using more than 8MB of RAM and 55MB of storage space clearly its just bloat. Why should a videogame need any more resources than the original DOOM? Clearly everything added on is just bloat.

by vkaku 3y ago

vel0city 3y ago

I'm just pointing out when you're crushing something's design specs by 10-1,000x it's no surprise it's snappy. Do the same with modern stuff and it'll still be pretty snappy. It's not like Office XP was some last optimized version and it's all bloat after that. Office XP could also be considered a massively bloated office suite itself.

vkaku 3y ago
The point is that old software and hardware are everyday usable. There are modern day software that do not suffer from the same performance issues as some of the other bloated ones. Albeit very few exist. One can always complain about things that don't work. Instead, look at everything that works well today - it is a very good way to bring usability back into perspective. The intent is in bringing computers way beyond their intended eras and keeping things running with them. The effort recognizes and acknowledges the mistakes done so that there is a course correction going forward. HTH.
- vel0city 3y ago
  > There are modern day software that do not suffer from the same performance issues as some of the other bloated ones. Albeit very few exist. This is what I'm saying though. You're suggesting modern software is all a bloated mess, unlike all this well-polished and optimized software they used to make. But you're only suggesting the old stuff doesn't suffer performance problems because you're going over the recommended specs 10-1,000x. Do the same with modern software, and suddenly its not so bloated now is it? Back in the day when Office XP released it was the bloated modern software unlike that well-polished and optimized software they used to make. You're just drawing arbitrary lines of computing hardware and software to say "this is bloated, this isn't". The requirements of Office 2000 was a 75MHz CPU, 16MB of RAM, and 189MB disk space. Office XP's minimum requirements were a 133MHz CPU, 32-128MB RAM, and 210MB disk space. Additional instance of an Office app also went from only needing 4MB RAM to needing 8MB RAM. Nearly 2x the resources, so incredibly bloated! I'm happy you're finding good use with the old hardware. Its good its serving your needs. I too tend to keep old computing hardware around until I no longer have any use for it, and even then I tend to sell it or give it to people who will actually use it instead of throwing it away. I've got some software I want to share with my kids, and it generally only runs well on like Windows 95 machines, so I actually am actively looking for some old hardware to run these educational games. So yeah, I'll be running an old Pentium III machine for them and it'll absolutely suit their needs. Sometimes a 10GHz 2TB RAM machine just isn't necessary for the task at hand, I agree. I'm just arguing the commentary about what is "bloated" and what isn't is ignoring a lot of other factors of what "bloated" really means. If you run something at way under the designed specs, you're going to have a bad time. If you run it with hardware that's 1,000x the design specs, its no surprise it runs fast. It doesn't mean the newer stuff is "bloated" while the old stuff wasn't, it was just designed for a different target in mind. And maybe for your needs, all you need is exactly what Office XP has. If all you're doing is putting letters on paper though, then Office XP is massively bloated compared to just using a typewriter. For me, most documents I work on are being worked on with cloud collaboration stuff, so tools like Office XP don't have anywhere near the features I need from an office suite. Is it still bloat then?
  - vkaku 3y ago
    I'm saying that software is getting bloated over time, and it needn't - if the idea is to keep software engineers employed, we could spend a few years doing a tick - increasing features and more years doing a tock - making things lean, efficient and sustainable. This is a very different idea, it's just like you said: 'finding good use with the old hardware'. This is a mindset, it is something that tries to keep systems alive while ensuring sustainability. Fixing broken hardware or softwre - This is what the post is about. As engineers, we should be realizing that there's tons of work lying around, and sustainability is a process and a goal. This is about recognizing how to put those efforts around it.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      > I'm saying that software is getting bloated over time, and it needn't But the "bloat" isn't just wasted space and resources; its often genuinely useful features. Your example with Office XP is a great example. We can look at just Word and compare it to even Word 2007. Its missing a lot of genuinely useful features. Its math equation builder is absolutely rudimentary and pretty bad compared to what is available in 2007. It doesn't show a live word count in the status bar. It doesn't offer the quick styles functionality. It lacks good bibliography and citation tools. Its document comparison engine is very rudimentary. It lacks a full screen reading mode. Its spell checker is extremely rudimentary. Are these additions just bloat? A contextual spell checker is going to use more CPU and RAM than just looking at whitespace and seeing if the word matches a database or hits a set of basic morphology rules, isn't? Handling a more complicated set of changes to do comparisons on is probably going to lead to a more complicated internal representation of the document, consuming more resources, isn't it? Having the processing and designs of the reading mode means the application is larger and consumes more ram, doesn't it? So its increasing the requirements by a good bit, but you're getting a lot of features along side it. Ah, but Office 2007, that's a bloated mess. But once again, if your standard is just putting black letters on a white page, why are you even bothering drawing colors to the screen? Aren't colors just bloat? Why have a screen at all? Just bloat. So yeah, does Word 2021 require a lot more resources to run than Office XP? Sure. It also does a whole hell of a lot more. Far better pen input with smart shapes, equations, and more. Far better dictation support. Even more enhanced contextual spelling/grammar tools along with a smart editor feature to give better critique. Better annotation and commenting tools. Better change tracking and comparison tools. Better collaboration features and live cloud syncing. New search tool to search settings, resources, help, and more. Accessibility checker tool helps find potential improvements to your documents like help adding alt-text and other things. Its not like Office 2021 is just the same thing as Office XP but now it needs at least a gigahertz and a few gigs of RAM. If that were the case, I'd agree its just bloat. But its got thousands and thousands of improvements and new features, all of which demand just a little bit more and a little bit more resources. Its unreasonable to expect for them to be able to shoehorn all the same features of Office 2021 into similar requirements of Office XP. And even then, picking Office XP is entirely arbitrary; why not hold them up to Office 95 as the standard of resources? If its using more than 8MB of RAM and 55MB of storage space clearly its just bloat. Why should a videogame need any more resources than the original DOOM? Clearly everything added on is just bloat.