3 ms·

The user experience is so (paradoxically) refreshing. Back then you could fit so much useful information and controls into a single screenful; interfaces respon

by hliyan 2y ago

The user experience is so (paradoxically) refreshing. Back then you could fit so much useful information and controls into a single screenful; interfaces responded instantly; it was easy to figure where things are and what I'm looking at. With "modern" UIs, you can't get a big picture of what you're working on because there is so much white space and scrolling; the application is slower than your fingers; with each application, you have to learn the designer's "vision" in order to figure out where things are and what you're looking at.

ksvarma 2y ago
Very well said, sometimes I feel the modern stack could re-learn and improve.
IshKebab 2y ago
> interfaces responded instantly I wish this nostalgic myth would die. Back in the Win 9x days we all had laughably slow spinning disks and hardly any RAM. Interfaces for simple programs like Minesweeper and Notepad were instant, sure. But anything heavy like Word, IE, Encarta, Visual Studio, etc. were definitely not. Most of those kinds of apps are way faster now than they were in the 90s, mostly thanks to SSDs. (Visual Studio is a notable exception - they really screwed it up after 6.0.)
- daliz 2y ago
  > Most of those kinds of apps are way faster now than they were in the 90s I strongly disagree.
- exe34 2y ago
  when you click save or when memory has to be paged/loaded, etc, yes. when it comes to responding to user input - while memory is being swapped, yes. in contrast, even when the computer wasn't responding, it never lost keystrokes. I'd type ahead and then the characters would appear when it was ready. now, the windows computer just randomly loses characters and loses focus for no reason. if it's not paying attention when you're typing or clicking, it just won't respond.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Windows doesn't randomly lose characters or focus for me.
    - sempron64 2y ago
      Re: losing focus: Maybe this a problem with tap to click on a touchpad? This happens to me and drives me crazy and it's invariably me inadvertently clicking with my palms. Disabling tap to click helps a lot.
      - exe34 2y ago
        I use an external keyboard, but I'm referring to the cases where popups and various things taking their time and showing up and disappearing. e.g. if I open teams and switch to something else, when teams finishes loading it comes to the front of the screen instead of staying in its lane. so it steals focus from say a text editor. it's like the user is supposed to be really dumb and slow, so you're meant to click on teams and wait a few minutes for it to load properly and then start interacting with the computer again.
    - dspillett 2y ago
      My problem with Windows today is it taking so long waiting for it to switch focus sometimes. If I don't artificially wait, a few keystrokes go to the previous target or off into the aether.
      - exe34 2y ago
        that's one of my issues with it, but forgot to specify - I really really hate clicking or typing and having to do it again.
- tl 2y ago
  It's a biased viewpoint, but it's not nostalgia. The following all happened to me: - 486 Packard Bell that I upgraded ram from 4MB -> 12MB as a kid? Win 3.1 went from being slow period to Windows 95 being fast any time I didn't touch disk or CD-ROM. - ZSNES on Pentium MMX? Zero lag gameplay with time-travel debugging and full memory view. - DOS running on a Pentium 4 to support legacy software? Nearly instant everything, especially power on -> usable machine. You'll notice a common thread. It was possible to outrun the demons of sluggishness back then.
- chungy 2y ago
  It is no myth. Go try a Windows 2000 system and compare it to today. Windows 2000 will respond a lot faster (often instant), even on complex applications.
  - rekabis 2y ago
    I ran this test myself when another obsolete bit of Y2K kit recently fell into my hands: even with a 256Gb spinning-rust drive and 1Gb of RAM, just using Windows Explorer to copy, move, and delete files took a fraction of the time my main rig did. And my main rig is a Dell T7920 running Win11 Pro for Workstations 24h2, with a Gen4 TLC NVMe directly attached to the Gen3 PCIe bus (at 7,000/6,900Mbps it can totally saturate its channel), 256Gb of 3200Mhz DDR4 LRDIMMs (4×32Gb), and dual 8C/16T Intel Silver 4110 CPUs. By any measure, my current rig should have blown the Win2k machine out of the water. The Win2k machine did the file operations in HALF THE F**KING TIME
    - database64128 2y ago
      Disable Windows Defender on your main rig and try again?
- narag 2y ago
  But anything heavy like Word, IE, Encarta, Visual Studio, etc. were definitely not. At any given point, old applications are faster and current applications are slow, slowness being unevenly distributed: if you can pay extra for bigger memory and CPU, you get to use the fast lane. Also consider that companies balance a number of factors: costs for themselves, time to market, features, what the competition offers. New, more powerful hardware is an opportunity for them to make sloppy software cheaper and first to launch.
- FpUser 2y ago
  >"Most of those kinds of apps are way faster now" Some calculation intensive parts sure are thanks to modern CPU with plenty of cache and RAM and multiple cores. GUI on the other hand are often atrocious
cjs_ac 2y ago
It's worth remembering you had far fewer pixels to play with; I remember 800x600 and 1024x768 being the standard monitor resolutions of the day.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Narishma 2y ago
  I think that's a poor excuse. Screen resolutions are higher now but our machines are also orders of magnitude more powerful.
hot_gril 2y ago
A lot of modern websites even add an intentional delay for buttons to respond or even load because it "looks nice."
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Unsure what exactly counts as "looks nice" but I'll often add an intentional delay to buttons whose actions are near instantaneous but not great to do multiple times so that you don't accidentally click it twice.
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    I'm thinking something way less necessary. One example off the top of my head is https://www.apple.com/iphone/ https://www.apple.com/iphone/ with all the text appearing slowly as you scroll down. It's kinda understandable cause it's just the marketing page. But some websites have these slow animations everywhere, both for elements appearing and for button clicks.
- miunau 2y ago
  This is an old practice suggested by HCI research going back decades
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by hliyan 2y ago

ksvarma 2y ago

Very well said, sometimes I feel the modern stack could re-learn and improve.

IshKebab 2y ago

> interfaces responded instantly I wish this nostalgic myth would die. Back in the Win 9x days we all had laughably slow spinning disks and hardly any RAM. Interfaces for simple programs like Minesweeper and Notepad were instant, sure. But anything heavy like Word, IE, Encarta, Visual Studio, etc. were definitely not. Most of those kinds of apps are way faster now than they were in the 90s, mostly thanks to SSDs. (Visual Studio is a notable exception - they really screwed it up after 6.0.)

daliz 2y ago
> Most of those kinds of apps are way faster now than they were in the 90s I strongly disagree.
exe34 2y ago
when you click save or when memory has to be paged/loaded, etc, yes. when it comes to responding to user input - while memory is being swapped, yes. in contrast, even when the computer wasn't responding, it never lost keystrokes. I'd type ahead and then the characters would appear when it was ready. now, the windows computer just randomly loses characters and loses focus for no reason. if it's not paying attention when you're typing or clicking, it just won't respond.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Windows doesn't randomly lose characters or focus for me.
  - sempron64 2y ago
    Re: losing focus: Maybe this a problem with tap to click on a touchpad? This happens to me and drives me crazy and it's invariably me inadvertently clicking with my palms. Disabling tap to click helps a lot.
    - exe34 2y ago
      I use an external keyboard, but I'm referring to the cases where popups and various things taking their time and showing up and disappearing. e.g. if I open teams and switch to something else, when teams finishes loading it comes to the front of the screen instead of staying in its lane. so it steals focus from say a text editor. it's like the user is supposed to be really dumb and slow, so you're meant to click on teams and wait a few minutes for it to load properly and then start interacting with the computer again.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    My problem with Windows today is it taking so long waiting for it to switch focus sometimes. If I don't artificially wait, a few keystrokes go to the previous target or off into the aether.
    - exe34 2y ago
      that's one of my issues with it, but forgot to specify - I really really hate clicking or typing and having to do it again.
tl 2y ago
It's a biased viewpoint, but it's not nostalgia. The following all happened to me: - 486 Packard Bell that I upgraded ram from 4MB -> 12MB as a kid? Win 3.1 went from being slow period to Windows 95 being fast any time I didn't touch disk or CD-ROM. - ZSNES on Pentium MMX? Zero lag gameplay with time-travel debugging and full memory view. - DOS running on a Pentium 4 to support legacy software? Nearly instant everything, especially power on -> usable machine. You'll notice a common thread. It was possible to outrun the demons of sluggishness back then.
chungy 2y ago
It is no myth. Go try a Windows 2000 system and compare it to today. Windows 2000 will respond a lot faster (often instant), even on complex applications.
- rekabis 2y ago
  I ran this test myself when another obsolete bit of Y2K kit recently fell into my hands: even with a 256Gb spinning-rust drive and 1Gb of RAM, just using Windows Explorer to copy, move, and delete files took a fraction of the time my main rig did. And my main rig is a Dell T7920 running Win11 Pro for Workstations 24h2, with a Gen4 TLC NVMe directly attached to the Gen3 PCIe bus (at 7,000/6,900Mbps it can totally saturate its channel), 256Gb of 3200Mhz DDR4 LRDIMMs (4×32Gb), and dual 8C/16T Intel Silver 4110 CPUs. By any measure, my current rig should have blown the Win2k machine out of the water. The Win2k machine did the file operations in HALF THE F**KING TIME
  - database64128 2y ago
    Disable Windows Defender on your main rig and try again?
narag 2y ago
But anything heavy like Word, IE, Encarta, Visual Studio, etc. were definitely not. At any given point, old applications are faster and current applications are slow, slowness being unevenly distributed: if you can pay extra for bigger memory and CPU, you get to use the fast lane. Also consider that companies balance a number of factors: costs for themselves, time to market, features, what the competition offers. New, more powerful hardware is an opportunity for them to make sloppy software cheaper and first to launch.
FpUser 2y ago
>"Most of those kinds of apps are way faster now" Some calculation intensive parts sure are thanks to modern CPU with plenty of cache and RAM and multiple cores. GUI on the other hand are often atrocious

cjs_ac 2y ago

It's worth remembering you had far fewer pixels to play with; I remember 800x600 and 1024x768 being the standard monitor resolutions of the day.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Narishma 2y ago
I think that's a poor excuse. Screen resolutions are higher now but our machines are also orders of magnitude more powerful.

hot_gril 2y ago

A lot of modern websites even add an intentional delay for buttons to respond or even load because it "looks nice."

lesuorac 2y ago
Unsure what exactly counts as "looks nice" but I'll often add an intentional delay to buttons whose actions are near instantaneous but not great to do multiple times so that you don't accidentally click it twice.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  I'm thinking something way less necessary. One example off the top of my head is https://www.apple.com/iphone/ https://www.apple.com/iphone/ with all the text appearing slowly as you scroll down. It's kinda understandable cause it's just the marketing page. But some websites have these slow animations everywhere, both for elements appearing and for button clicks.
miunau 2y ago
This is an old practice suggested by HCI research going back decades

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]