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Old 09-10-2014, 08:14 AM
 
Location: MO->MI->CA->TX->MA
7,021 posts, read 14,421,688 times
Reputation: 5569

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Back in 1996, I had a Pentium 133 Mhz machine with 32 MB of ram and it browsed the web fine on a dial-up (and later, a slower broadband connection.) It ran Windows 95, can do spreadsheets and word processing in Office 95, and even ran some games.

Today, I'd be hard pressed to find a modern operating system that will run on that hardware, let alone modern web browsing and word processing software. I probably won't even be able to install a fairly recent Linux distro in command line only mode on this machine.

This also applies to smartphone too. One of my first smartphone (and one of the first Android phones on the market) was the Samsung Intercept. Over 3 years ago, it did most basic smartphone functions fine. Although I don't use it now, I played around with it recently on Wifi and it insisted on updating to the latest Google apps but unfortunately, there was no space left to accommodate the latest updates to even the most basic apps, let alone apps that I choose to download.

Unless you're willing to scour the archives for out of date versions of software, it becomes impossible to run even the most basic programs on older computers these days even though many years ago, they ran them fine.

The latest iPhone 6 is coming out this month but I bet in 10 years, it won't even have the capacity to run the latest Gmail or text messaging apps, let alone games, web browsers, etc.

Thoughts?
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Old 09-10-2014, 09:35 AM
 
Location: Metro Washington DC
15,399 posts, read 25,669,091 times
Reputation: 10404
I've always thought about that. They tout how the latest OS or software is faster and more powerful than the old, but fail to mention the requirement for faster and more powerful hardware. On the other hand, we updated an old laptop from XP to Windows 7 and the performance was greatly increased even on the old hardware.
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Old 09-11-2014, 08:24 AM
 
Location: NJ
4,940 posts, read 12,096,570 times
Reputation: 4562
Whenever improvements are made to hardware, software is designed to push that hardware to the limit. The internet back in 1996 was nothing like it is today. Now you have websites with java, flash, embedded video, etc. that you didn't have back then. So as hardware improved, everything was built around it to take advantage of the hardware improvements. That's why you would have trouble browsing today's internet on a 1996 machine.
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Old 09-11-2014, 10:11 AM
 
23,544 posts, read 70,012,236 times
Reputation: 48995
There is a concept that underlies your rant. It is called "elegance." When resources are limited and a task must be performed, it behooves everyone to focus intently on the task and complete it in the fewest steps and as quickly as possible. Think of it as the computational equivalent of walking directly from point A to point B. That is linear programming. With object oriented programming, and languages and scripts that get further away for direct communication with the computer, that walk becomes more like a pinball machine ball bouncing between large multipurpose chunks of code. When you add security then every step of the walk must be protected by armed snipers, traffic signals, and border guards requesting "may we see your papers?"

There is also a very disturbing trend of programs getting online without user permission, to update security, check for newer versions, and just call home to mama. In some situations, all of the processing power and bandwidth use makes using the computer difficult for a number of minutes upon start-up, especially with limited bandwidth.

I've kept copies of older programs and operating systems. I have a couple of computers that NEVER access the net. I don't worry about their security.
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Old 09-12-2014, 07:47 AM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
16,480 posts, read 19,512,945 times
Reputation: 13188
Quote:
Originally Posted by ansky View Post
Whenever improvements are made to hardware, software is designed to push that hardware to the limit. The internet back in 1996 was nothing like it is today. Now you have websites with java, flash, embedded video, etc. that you didn't have back then. So as hardware improved, everything was built around it to take advantage of the hardware improvements. That's why you would have trouble browsing today's internet on a 1996 machine.
Exactly. As the hardware improves, the software and everything else improves to take advantage of it.
Hardware drives software.
Compare Wolf3D with Call Of Duty today. Yea, bring on that "inflation" baby.
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Old 09-12-2014, 11:14 AM
 
Location: A safe distance from San Francisco
12,350 posts, read 9,647,930 times
Reputation: 13891
With respect to the Internet, all "hardware inflation" has given us is a geometric increase in sophisticated and obnoxious ads. The overall experience has been degraded....badly.

Where games are concerned, some that ran on a Commodore 64 were more fun than almost anything that has appeared in the last 10 years.
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Old 09-12-2014, 11:20 AM
 
Location: Wandering.
3,549 posts, read 6,638,496 times
Reputation: 2704
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownVic95 View Post
With respect to the Internet, all "hardware inflation" has given us is a geometric increase in sophisticated and obnoxious ads. The overall experience has been degraded....badly.

Where games are concerned, some that ran on a Commodore 64 were more fun than almost anything that has appeared in the last 10 years.
I haven't seen an add on the internet in years. You must be doing something wrong.
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Old 09-12-2014, 11:34 AM
 
Location: A safe distance from San Francisco
12,350 posts, read 9,647,930 times
Reputation: 13891
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skunk Workz View Post
I haven't seen an add on the internet in years. You must be doing something wrong.
It just never fails.

Welcome to ignore.
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Old 09-12-2014, 12:47 PM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
16,480 posts, read 19,512,945 times
Reputation: 13188
You put someone on ignore for that?
Wow...

And really? That's ALL this technology has given us? More ads???




VS.



O yea...those were the days alright!!

LOL

/Guess I'll be next on Ignore.
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Old 09-12-2014, 04:02 PM
 
Location: Metro Washington DC
15,399 posts, read 25,669,091 times
Reputation: 10404
I remember when ads popped up by the dozens every time you logged in. I don't see that happening anymore. Things definitely improved, but I think we have had some setbacks with the way things work today. I never felt the need to block ads or other web goodies until the past year or so.
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