7 ms·

Exactly what I thought as well. UIs get increasingly slower as time passes, not snappier. We had snappy UIs in the 80s and 90s.

llm_trw 2y ago
We had bloated UIs in the 80s and 90s, it's just that what's come after is so much worse. Try using the old analog control systems where responses are basically instant. It feels like the controls are reading your mind.
- jwells89 2y ago
  Mac OS 9 felt pretty darned fast on my 400Mhz iMac G3 back in 2000. Same for Windows 2000 on my parents’ PIII 750Mhz Dimension 4100. The only time anything felt slow is when a significant amount of data needed to be loaded from their hard drives. Not all machines were like this though, we also had a Compaq Presario with some kind of Celeron running 98SE and that thing did feel slow more often than not, especially after several months of usage with the cruft buildup that comes with that.
  - tivert 2y ago
    I think the rule (at least while Moore's law was in force), was UIs start out boated but become fast as the hardware catches up. For instance, your example: > Mac OS 9 felt pretty darned fast on my 400Mhz iMac G3 back in 2000. You were using a UI that (at its core) was built for 1984 machine, with sixteen additional years of hardware performance improvements. Every once in a while I boot up a Mac from 1989, and Mac OS is definitely not snappy on it. I think if you want speed, you need to find something built for a system far more constrained than the one you're actually using. The choices the developers made to make the system merely usable under those constraints will make it fast once they're removed.
    - jwells89 2y ago
      That makes a lot of sense, and I agree. Perhaps a good baseline to develop against today to produce a similar result on modern hardware would be something like a Core 2 Duo or Core i5-750 and Geforce 9600 GT.
- peatmoss 2y ago
  I think the point of comparison in the 80s and 90s were those analog systems. Expectations about lag were set by analog. We could have really snappy stuff today, but have gotten enamored with our latency inducing abstractions and haven't really gone back to fix it. 80s and 90s bloated UIs sure seem snappy and miniature by today's standards.
IshKebab 2y ago
I don't remember Windows 95 & MS Word 6 being especially snappy. I think this is nostalgia.
- viraptor 2y ago
  The apps were snappy, but the hardware wasn't. Every menu/window opened immediately and without unnecessary animation... unless it needed some unexpected processing - then you were potentially waiting for the spinning rust to handle the swap file.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    The UI was minimalistic, but with better hardware we also wanted nicer fonts, transitions, wobbly windows (I actually miss those) and countless other nice things that take time. Also, it’s pointless to open a menu in less time than it takes the screen to refresh.
    - bmacho 2y ago
      > Also, it’s pointless to open a menu in less time than it takes the screen to refresh. No, that would be the goal.
      - rbanffy 2y ago
        How many times do you want to refresh it without the user seeing it? Once should be quite enough.
    - Lex-2008 2y ago
      wobbly windows - did you know that they're still available in modern KDE Plasma Desktop Environment? No need to actually miss them! :) https://userbase.kde.org/Tips/Enable_fun_desktop_effects_on_KDE_Plasma#Add_some_eye_candy_to_your_KDE_Plasma_Desktop https://userbase.kde.org/Tips/Enable_fun_desktop_effects_on_...
  - ahoka 2y ago
    There's an option to disable animations in Windows, but I find it disorienting.
ahoka 2y ago
That's just comparing CRT screens with 60Hz LCD panels. Get anything 120Hz+ and you will see that modern systems are very snappy.
- wao0uuno 2y ago
  I strongly disagree with this statement. Every new version of Windows feels slower than the last one. Linux DEs are either very outdated and very snappy or somewhat modern and only barely snappier than Windows. I have zero experience with MacOS.
- hodapp 2y ago
  No, an extra ~17 msec of delay is not even close to the cause of this. The speed difference between older and newer UIs is still apparent even at 60 Hz.
- morning-coffee 2y ago
  CRT screens were also 60Hz. Look at the latency along all steps of the pipeline to get a keypress visible on the screen... https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
  - goosedragons 2y ago
    Many were above 60Hz and it depends on resolution. An iMac G3 for instance could do 75Hz at 1024x768 or 640x480 at 117Hz. Someone recently got a CRT at 700Hz too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zm3lLlaEC8&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zm3lLlaEC8&t=0s
  - hollandheese 2y ago
    Only the crappy ones were restricted to that. My 22” Diamondtron went 2048x1536 @ 85Hz or 1600x1200 @ 100Hz (which is what I usually ran it at)
- anthk 2y ago
  My CRT did 1024x768@85 HZ.
pino82 2y ago
Not only slower, right? I mean, for UIs, there is the same race to the bottom going on as in other parts of the industry. It needs to be a big show, and everybody must be able to directly understand it without any learning curve or even rtfm. Everything else (ergonomics, features, ...) are too often secondary values. I wouldn't say that UIs were great in the 90s. They weren't. It was also harder to implement them. The programming languages were more tedious, low-level, etc. But as so often, it's disappointing what we do with our additional power today. Snappiness wouldn't even be my first concern, though.

llm_trw 2y ago

We had bloated UIs in the 80s and 90s, it's just that what's come after is so much worse. Try using the old analog control systems where responses are basically instant. It feels like the controls are reading your mind.

jwells89 2y ago
Mac OS 9 felt pretty darned fast on my 400Mhz iMac G3 back in 2000. Same for Windows 2000 on my parents’ PIII 750Mhz Dimension 4100. The only time anything felt slow is when a significant amount of data needed to be loaded from their hard drives. Not all machines were like this though, we also had a Compaq Presario with some kind of Celeron running 98SE and that thing did feel slow more often than not, especially after several months of usage with the cruft buildup that comes with that.
- tivert 2y ago
  I think the rule (at least while Moore's law was in force), was UIs start out boated but become fast as the hardware catches up. For instance, your example: > Mac OS 9 felt pretty darned fast on my 400Mhz iMac G3 back in 2000. You were using a UI that (at its core) was built for 1984 machine, with sixteen additional years of hardware performance improvements. Every once in a while I boot up a Mac from 1989, and Mac OS is definitely not snappy on it. I think if you want speed, you need to find something built for a system far more constrained than the one you're actually using. The choices the developers made to make the system merely usable under those constraints will make it fast once they're removed.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    That makes a lot of sense, and I agree. Perhaps a good baseline to develop against today to produce a similar result on modern hardware would be something like a Core 2 Duo or Core i5-750 and Geforce 9600 GT.
peatmoss 2y ago
I think the point of comparison in the 80s and 90s were those analog systems. Expectations about lag were set by analog. We could have really snappy stuff today, but have gotten enamored with our latency inducing abstractions and haven't really gone back to fix it. 80s and 90s bloated UIs sure seem snappy and miniature by today's standards.

IshKebab 2y ago

I don't remember Windows 95 & MS Word 6 being especially snappy. I think this is nostalgia.

viraptor 2y ago
The apps were snappy, but the hardware wasn't. Every menu/window opened immediately and without unnecessary animation... unless it needed some unexpected processing - then you were potentially waiting for the spinning rust to handle the swap file.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  The UI was minimalistic, but with better hardware we also wanted nicer fonts, transitions, wobbly windows (I actually miss those) and countless other nice things that take time. Also, it’s pointless to open a menu in less time than it takes the screen to refresh.
  - bmacho 2y ago
    > Also, it’s pointless to open a menu in less time than it takes the screen to refresh. No, that would be the goal.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      How many times do you want to refresh it without the user seeing it? Once should be quite enough.
  - Lex-2008 2y ago
    wobbly windows - did you know that they're still available in modern KDE Plasma Desktop Environment? No need to actually miss them! :) https://userbase.kde.org/Tips/Enable_fun_desktop_effects_on_KDE_Plasma#Add_some_eye_candy_to_your_KDE_Plasma_Desktop https://userbase.kde.org/Tips/Enable_fun_desktop_effects_on_...
- ahoka 2y ago
  There's an option to disable animations in Windows, but I find it disorienting.

ahoka 2y ago

That's just comparing CRT screens with 60Hz LCD panels. Get anything 120Hz+ and you will see that modern systems are very snappy.

wao0uuno 2y ago
I strongly disagree with this statement. Every new version of Windows feels slower than the last one. Linux DEs are either very outdated and very snappy or somewhat modern and only barely snappier than Windows. I have zero experience with MacOS.
hodapp 2y ago
No, an extra ~17 msec of delay is not even close to the cause of this. The speed difference between older and newer UIs is still apparent even at 60 Hz.
morning-coffee 2y ago
CRT screens were also 60Hz. Look at the latency along all steps of the pipeline to get a keypress visible on the screen... https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
- goosedragons 2y ago
  Many were above 60Hz and it depends on resolution. An iMac G3 for instance could do 75Hz at 1024x768 or 640x480 at 117Hz. Someone recently got a CRT at 700Hz too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zm3lLlaEC8&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zm3lLlaEC8&t=0s
- hollandheese 2y ago
  Only the crappy ones were restricted to that. My 22” Diamondtron went 2048x1536 @ 85Hz or 1600x1200 @ 100Hz (which is what I usually ran it at)
anthk 2y ago
My CRT did 1024x768@85 HZ.

pino82 2y ago

Not only slower, right? I mean, for UIs, there is the same race to the bottom going on as in other parts of the industry. It needs to be a big show, and everybody must be able to directly understand it without any learning curve or even rtfm. Everything else (ergonomics, features, ...) are too often secondary values. I wouldn't say that UIs were great in the 90s. They weren't. It was also harder to implement them. The programming languages were more tedious, low-level, etc. But as so often, it's disappointing what we do with our additional power today. Snappiness wouldn't even be my first concern, though.