Well, yeah. Back in the mid-80's, software needed to be usable on a computer with a single 360KB floppy drive. (No HD, no SSD, no USB, no network, no ...) And even a big budget for RAM - which cost many orders of magnitude more than today - would really not get you around Bill Gates' 640KB DOS memory limit.
Comparing to current-day stuff is kinda like comparing battery-powered bathtub toys to jetskis.
[−]probably_wrong · 2026-11-15 Sun 15:13 UTC ·
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Those "bathtub toys" built the entire modern infrastructure, parts of which are still chugging along. If anything, I'd put the onus on software developers - like John Carmack said in 2005, "there is something deeply wrong when text editing on a 3.6 ghz processor is anything but instantaneous".
Software in the 80s showed what's possible when you really care about doing it. Software in the last 15 years feels like an exercise on what happens when you don't.
[−]throwaway2037 · 2026-11-15 Sun 16:51 UTC ·
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I remember Windows 98, where it crashed every few hours and took everything with it, but while it worked, it never missed a keystroke or mouse press. I could type ahead and click where I knew the button would appear in 10 seconds and it still wouldn't lose anything. Nowadays you just finish typing out a thought and then realise half of it never turned up, because something else claimed the focus or whatever.
Yet at the same time, one is a pastime for an affluent lifestyle while the other is driving the global economy. Interestingly, or ironically, the former was probably put on the shelves by means of the latter.
If there is any positive progress to be made, the rethinking necessary must go much, much deeper than the superficial flesh of the problem, but there it’s bound to hit upon the sinews and bones of vested interests.
In all, as I’m growing older and see the world trudge along the same lines it did centuries ago, I’m more and more pessimistic about the possibility of people agreeing that the sacrifices necessary will be made.
Short-term stakeholder interests seem to trump any notions of longer-term greater good.
Comparing to current-day stuff is kinda like comparing battery-powered bathtub toys to jetskis.
Software in the 80s showed what's possible when you really care about doing it. Software in the last 15 years feels like an exercise on what happens when you don't.
If there is any positive progress to be made, the rethinking necessary must go much, much deeper than the superficial flesh of the problem, but there it’s bound to hit upon the sinews and bones of vested interests.
In all, as I’m growing older and see the world trudge along the same lines it did centuries ago, I’m more and more pessimistic about the possibility of people agreeing that the sacrifices necessary will be made.
Short-term stakeholder interests seem to trump any notions of longer-term greater good.
which one is which?