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This thread is going to contain a lot people complaining that even though today's hardware is orders of magnitude more powerful than twenty years ago, our compu

This thread is going to contain a lot people complaining that even though today's hardware is orders of magnitude more powerful than twenty years ago, our computers seem to be just as slow.

thejosh 12y ago
Well it is slow because programs have been built to use all of our processing power. Like flash.
- bane 12y ago
  Well, we got rid of flash and replaced it with Javascript and HTML5 and whatever, so your theory holds.
  - thejosh 12y ago
    Not being snarky, but Youtube with HTML5 is so smooth now.
    - Narishma 12y ago
      Not for everyone. In my case, I have to use browser extensions to force Youtube to use the Flash player because the HTML5 one doesn't do hardware accelerated playback for some reason and drains my laptop's battery like crazy (not to mention the fan noise).
- vidarh 12y ago
  Unnecessary abstractions and expensive context switches are my favourite pet peeves.
bane 12y ago
And we don't really seem to be doing all that much more with them computationally.
flomo 12y ago
I worked in a college lab full of Mac IIcis, and they felt ridiculously slow even back then. :) I think people's memories get funny and they forget that it took minutes to launch programs and you could even watch the windows redraw.
- kibibu 12y ago
  Having worked in audio and video editing on Pentium-era machines, I don't think modern machines are slow at all.
- wiredfool 12y ago
  I remember setting up a IIci with a fast scsi drive and system 6. It booted in about 5 seconds. I don't think anything I've seen has come close to that fast until the era of SSDs. Later, when I got my first DSL line, I had a different cast off IIci running netbsd doing NAT for my little network. That would have been 1997 or so, 640k symmetric, I think the IIci had 24 megs of memory or so. Old and slow at the time, but less powerful than this one.
  - flomo 12y ago
    IIcis had some sort of onboard video which made them feel sluggish compared to similar Macs. We retrofitted them with cache cards (?) which helped a little. But, yep, very slow disks, System 7, and they IIRC had 4MB of memory. (24MB would have been an unimaginable luxury.)
    - wiredfool 12y ago
      Yep, ci's had onboard video, the cx didn't. I think that they were the first color/030 machines with onboard video. They always seemed fast to me, because I bought a Mac SE just before the classic/lc/si came out. That was when Apple did a massive sales push on campus in late August/early Sept, and announced new machines in October.
      - flomo 12y ago

This thread is going to contain a lot people complaining that even though today's hardware is orders of magnitude more powerful than twenty years ago, our computers seem to be just as slow.

thejosh 12y ago

Well it is slow because programs have been built to use all of our processing power. Like flash.

bane 12y ago
Well, we got rid of flash and replaced it with Javascript and HTML5 and whatever, so your theory holds.
- thejosh 12y ago
  Not being snarky, but Youtube with HTML5 is so smooth now.
  - Narishma 12y ago
    Not for everyone. In my case, I have to use browser extensions to force Youtube to use the Flash player because the HTML5 one doesn't do hardware accelerated playback for some reason and drains my laptop's battery like crazy (not to mention the fan noise).
vidarh 12y ago
Unnecessary abstractions and expensive context switches are my favourite pet peeves.

bane 12y ago

And we don't really seem to be doing all that much more with them computationally.

flomo 12y ago

I worked in a college lab full of Mac IIcis, and they felt ridiculously slow even back then. :) I think people's memories get funny and they forget that it took minutes to launch programs and you could even watch the windows redraw.

kibibu 12y ago
Having worked in audio and video editing on Pentium-era machines, I don't think modern machines are slow at all.
wiredfool 12y ago
I remember setting up a IIci with a fast scsi drive and system 6. It booted in about 5 seconds. I don't think anything I've seen has come close to that fast until the era of SSDs. Later, when I got my first DSL line, I had a different cast off IIci running netbsd doing NAT for my little network. That would have been 1997 or so, 640k symmetric, I think the IIci had 24 megs of memory or so. Old and slow at the time, but less powerful than this one.
- flomo 12y ago
  IIcis had some sort of onboard video which made them feel sluggish compared to similar Macs. We retrofitted them with cache cards (?) which helped a little. But, yep, very slow disks, System 7, and they IIRC had 4MB of memory. (24MB would have been an unimaginable luxury.)
  - wiredfool 12y ago
    Yep, ci's had onboard video, the cx didn't. I think that they were the first color/030 machines with onboard video. They always seemed fast to me, because I bought a Mac SE just before the classic/lc/si came out. That was when Apple did a massive sales push on campus in late August/early Sept, and announced new machines in October.
    - flomo 12y ago