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Comment by christophilus | Hacker News Reader

Weird. Today, I plug in a computer and it works. I install an OS and it works. It detects all of my hardware and gets online right away. My computer hasn’t randomly crashed in years. When I save my work, I don’t even consider the possibility that the save might fail and I’ll lose all of my changes. When I wonder how to do something, I can find the answer in seconds by typing plain English into one of several powerful web browsers. I also have a super computer in my pocket. Also, I have git which is so vastly better than anything I had in the 90s.

We seem to have two very different experiences of past technology.

One last thing. I installed Elementary OS on an old computer recently, and every app opened instantly. As in, I clicked it, and it was just there. No perceptible delay. I’m not entirely sure how they do it, but it seems they’re close to the goal in that department.

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I remember the experience of shrink wrapped software just failing to install, or crashing as soon as it was opened, being something that happened semi-regularly. It was worse than trying to open an old flash website on a phone, a lot of times it was just totally unusable.

I guess not working at all is simple, but I would say the quality and reliability increase has been wonderful.

This is almost certainly still true of most shrink wrap software. Have you looked at the shelves on a Walmart to see what is being offered?

It also sounds a lot like my experience with much of my Android setup that includes games I've let my kids install.

There is still software on the shelves? The last two I saw were Windows Vista and Norton. Admittedly I haven't looked in that section recently! (And to be fair, there are plenty of PC games to this day :)

The overwhelming majority of PC games these days are sold as digital downloads online on portals like steam.

> We seem to have two very different experiences of past technology.

Or you are talking about two different aspects. Older systems were more fragile, sure, but that doesn't have much to do with their usability. You can have a simpler UX on a strong foundation.

I didn't grew up with classic Mac (so no rosy glasses here) but the few times i used it (mainly via emulation, though i did use one real 'pizza box' Macintosh at the past) i really liked how downright simple the system is. This is a sentiment that was also echoed by my aunt who used classic Mac both at work and home back in the day and switched to Mac OS X at some point - decades later she still says that the classic Mac was much simpler and easier to use (she said that it was so approachable that one of her coworkers was actually referring to it as if it was some pet :-P). Note that when she started using computers she was already a full grown adult, so she hasn't associated classic Mac with her childhood or anything like that that people sometimes like to claim as reason for liking simpler stuff (which, i'll admit that it is partially true, but that only holds up for when you haven't used the stuff you claim to be simple any time recently and with modern tech and emulators this is really easy to confirm).

Also hardware is still sucky at times - my RX 5700 XT powered PC was randomly hanging and crashing all the time until AMD managed to stabilize things a bit a few months after the GPU's release. I still do not update regularly the drivers and keep an archive with the older drivers that worked around just in case something breaks because i do not trust the newer drivers to work without issues. Similarly on another system with a 2400G APU i installed Linux which would randomly lock up at startup - that was a brand new system BTW, it was just a system i bought with the cheapest components i could find.

Classic Mac OS was remarkably simple indeed and that simplicity died with Mac OS X. You could put the “System” and the “Finder” inside a folder called “System Folder” at the root of the drive and that was enough for you to have a bootable disk.

You could name your files whatever you wanted, as one should, no magical dot 3 letters extension at the end required.

There was a one to one relationship between a folder and a window and the files within it. One folder had always one window showing its contents which where always arranged in the way you set up. The arrangement was even preserved if you copied it to another drive.

I could go on and on. Memory management, process isolation and multitasking were deeply flawed and bolted on, but the rest of the experience was incredibly simple and cohesive and hasn’t been matched since.

Maybe a nit, but FWIW, on OS X you still can name your files whatever you want, 3 letter suffixes do not influence the file type, and folders still store their layout if in that mode (click the 4 squares in the toolbar and maybe you have to change one setting in the CMD J window not at a mac right now).

(not attcking you, the fact that it is a hidden setting probably proves your point. just find it interesting that this stuff is around still)

I install an OS and I have to set it up, which for some require an internet connection capable of downloading multiple gigabytes of memory.

When I watch the 8-bit guy, I see him turn on a computer from 1984 and while it sometimes fails for hardware related issues due to age and use, when it works it frequently just starts up in a few seconds, right into a basic prompt.

Meanwhile my laptop will sometimes get stuck displaying the boot logo when I start it with the button on the dock, sometimes it will refuse to see the external screen.

Only a second and it displays a prompt! And that’s how far the abilities of most users goes, you can’t teach them how to use this prompt.

Not to mention there’s no way to hook these computers to the internet which is what most people want to use.

There’s a lot to improve on modern computers but comparing them to a c64 is just ridiculous.

Tell me why Windows shouldn't be able to start up in a few seconds, as a C64 did? My computer has multiple cores running multiple gigabit each. Detecting the connected hardware should be a trivial task.

I am fully aware that modern computers are supposed to be easier to use for the average person and they are certainly easier to _start_ to use, but having spent time teaching my grandparents to use their computer I am honestly not sure they wouldn't benefit from a simpler text based interface with less bullshit, random confusing crap that appears to change (live tiles in win10 is a specially annoying example) programs that ask/demand to be updated) and so on.

Of course they would have to learn to use it, and it would somehow have to access their garden websites, but it is not ridiculous. Not if you are a very new computer user and not if you are a very advanced computer user.

Anyway my childhood computer was a win98 computer, so I don't approach this from a nostalgic perspective but from the point of view that a modern computer should be better in all cases than an old machine.

> Tell me why Windows shouldn't be able to start up in a few seconds, as a C64 did?

Why don't you tell us why it should?

On an SSD it boots in <1min which is a feat considering how much functionality is just there on boot, unlike a C64 which literally does nothing on boot except show a BASIC prompt.

A modern computer can boot into UEFI shell in seconds which is comparable to what a C64 boots to... but why would I do that?

Even if you get your OS to a bare minimum like a bare Arch Linux install it takes a while to load for a reason.

We trade off some boot time for a lot of functionality and smooth experience once the initial RAM has been set up with the needed data structures for normal operation.

RISC OS running on the early ARM 250 CPU in 1992 booted to a GUI desktop in about 15 seconds.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=r2gro6XUJVk

When my dad's new job meant we needed a PC instead, we all grumbled that Windows 95 took longer to load.

I recently upgraded my primary boot ssd to name m.2.

From pressing enter on grub to desktop is ~6 seconds on a cold boot.

It was noticeably faster than booting from even a sata ssd.

Was pleasantly surprised.

> Why don't you tell us why it should?

Because each core is 4 orders of magnitude faster and it has multiple cores?

Boot is probably IO and not CPU bound, hence why NVMes take the boot times down to <10s.

That ignores a lot of things, like why it has to load so much information off the disk to boot. The entirety of Windows 95, the interface of which is not much less computationally intensive than modern Windows, fit in <50MB. Loading that from disk today, even with spinning rust, should be nigh-instantaneous. What justifies orders of magnitude more data loading?

Yeah, it "just works" but it does nothing.

Then you have to open a book, to see how to load data from a tape.

Windows 95(?) solved this issue by implementing autorun (insert cd, wait, window pops up, "install"/"play", click the one you want, and you're done).

Not all micros used tapes, many used floppies. The classic Mac mentioned in the linked article even knew when you had a floppy inserted and could show (and open) an icon on the desktop once you did.

But you could also say the same for Windows 95 though, after you inserted the CD and had the window open then what? You still had to read a manual or whatever to figure out how the application worked.

Or even Windows 95 itself. Which isn't something that modern PCs have solved either - people who haven't used computers before to this day treat them as (black) magic boxes that they might break if they do something slightly odd because of how complex things are. And a modern Windows 10 computer has a ton more stuff on screen than a Windows 95 computer ever had.

Windows sorted that with autoexecution of an application delivered with the CD, the problem was like many productivity features it got abused by virus writers, thus eventually disabled by default.

While I ultimately agree with you, a lot of things working better today is your skill and ability to buy nicer things.

Seeing my family try and throw bargain bin components at a computer is a painful experience. Worse, as now things are likely to be malware vectors.

And heaven help you if you are trying to get by with a cheap computer. At least a raspberry pi is just slow, similar ideas with windows leave me baffled at how bad it is.

> a lot of things working better today is your skill and ability to buy nicer things

Or the fact that 80% of what you do nowadays is Google, Facebook, Apple, or Amazon.

Only if you are an adult. My kids could give two craps if those went away. (Granted, I am excepting youtube as not just Google.)

Wings of Fire, Spirit Animals, and Pokemon? Now you are talking.

To be fair, Pokemon first generation was mid-90s...

And before that was AOL, Lycos, and Yahoo.

And my favorite of the old bbs scene. :)

True for me, but not for my mom. Today, she can print from her phone or computer on her very first attempt with a brand new printer. Holy hell, printing was such a PITA in the past. Do you remember those finicky cables with the screws? And installing drivers which then crashed or hung your computer? It’s amazing how much better most experiences are today.

Amusingly, last few times I have tried to print from my phone have not been successful. I recall one printer wanting me to have a particular app. Or, now, one expected to have internet access, which I don't have at home other than my phone connection right now.

That said, I would still count this as having nice things. When we got rid of our ancient printer and bought a current one, it does work more often. Ironically, better from Linux, as I don't have to install drivers; because of course it came with a windows disk that has installed some crap on that computer.

So, try this with what you could find at Goodwill some day. Or work with a budget where you stay trying to get refills to work.

> Do you remember those finicky cables with the screws?

I remember cables with screws (which didn't actually need to be screwed, really.) They were quite easy to use; not any harder than configuring WiFi is, and much more reliable. Less convenient as far as choosing locations, though.

> And installing drivers which then crashed or hung your computer?

I've been using PCs since before OS-level printer drivers were a thing and through the whole era where they were, and I've never had problems with printer drivers on PC (well, outside of mismanagement by IT on work computers.) I've had problems with drivers on Linux, and with printer support apps (effectively drivers) on Android on personal devices, though.

I had Windows hard crash using Google Chrome on Hulu.

I had Windows reset itself in the middle of a long-running calculation overnight, because obviously 100% CPU usage and programs that refuse to quit is a signal it’s safe to power cycle the computer.

I routinely have to fight my devices to do what I say, because they re-interpreted valid words into other ones.

I think modern tech reliability is as overstated as historic rosiness — this turd is polished, but it’s not more functional.

Windows is absolutely more stable now than it was in the 90s. Not even comparable.

Hmm Windows NT was a rock.

My fav OS was Win2k ... Ahhh memories

There's a reason that XP and subsequent client versions were based on NT :)

It was not used by most people back in the 90s...

Agreed, I used Windows throughout the 90’s. I remember running one of the early web servers on my pc and was used to rebooting daily to avoid an unresponsive server.

But Windows NT was much more stable as a server.

I think what also added to it was NTs responsiveness. Today there are so many housekeeping jobs that might take your CPU that you never know how long e.g. opening settings will take. Clicking anything in explorer on a good Pentium 3 running NT4 always had the same satisfying latency, almost like an RTOS.

Windows was more stable 10 years ago than it was in the 90s. I wouldn't be surprised if it's less stable now than it was in the 90s.

Have you ever used Windows 95?

Yes.

It's "more stable" but is it "more reliable"? Not when it decides it's going to reboot in the middle of a long-running job even when I've told it not to. The inability to disable windows from updating itself is one of the most terrible decisions they ever made.

I don't even understand your comment. Yes, definitely more reliable than crashing randomly when doing about anything for no reason with BSOD, like when plugging peripherals or when one piece of software made the whole OS crash.

It doesn't matter. If I'm running a job overnight, I'm not plugging or unplugging any peripherals or starting or stopping any other tasks. My sole expectation is that the system will run my job to completion. Not to rudely interrupt it to restart the system to install updates which it has decided are of a higher priority than the sole reason I am running the system.

Another situation is that I'm running virtual machines on a Windows 10 host. I want those machines to be available continuously, and I want any system reboots to be planned and manually executed. Windows 10 has taken that control away.

Windows 10 restarting itself on its own whims is a regular occurrence. It's completely and utterly unacceptable. Even if you change all the settings to prevent it, it still occurs.

You can pause updates in Settings, and totally disable them in the registry I believe.

Yes, you can try, and it does respect it to a degree. But not all the time. And it likes to reset the settings following updates. There isn't a single and unambiguous knob to set which will guarantee it will never ever happen. Even for "emergency" security updates.

I'd much prefer the MacOS or Linux approach which is to notify you but still requires you to action it. Nag me all you like. But always leave the "reboot" step under my control to explicitly sanction. Then I can ensure it happens at my convenience and that it doesn't interrupt any business-critical work in process.

What version of Windows? 10 definitely seems less stable and slower than 7. I haven't had any BSODs with 7, which is amazing looking back now (with 10 having unrecoverable blue screens, damn).

Latest Windows 10 and Google Chrome have a periodic freeze watching Hulu, which requires a hard reset. None of that is uncommon tech.

I suspect some kind of DRM or video codec is freezing the whole machine when it crashes.

Windows 7 was great.

>My computer hasn’t randomly crashed in years.

Wow, what OS do you run?

FWIW, to throw my anecdotes in: my Windows machine, built in 2018, has never crashed on me once, to my recollection. My Linux laptop (Thinkpad X1) has...locked up a handful of times, I think. My work laptop, a 2017 Macbook Pro, crashes on me near-daily, and the keyboard is slowly approaching unusable.

On a 2015 MacBook Pro my xubuntu was rock solid. On the ThinkPad p1 extreme it's a joke. The Nvidia driver core dumped on me yesterday. The usb bus got into a bad state the day before (this started happening after I started using a USB 3.0 HDMI adapter, to avoid having to use Nvidia to power external monitors). That caused the webcam on the same internal hub to stop working, an in our WFH times, a webcam is essential.

The crazy part is that the webcam driver I used on the MacBook was reverse engineered and never actually reached "stability" or got added to the kernel. I just compiled it and packaged it with DKMS and then forgot all about it.

In the last three years I think the only OS-level crashes I've had on Windows 10 were failing hardware. Of course, knowing what hardware to avoid is half the battle!

OSX and Linux.

I've had my desktop PC for almost 9 years now. It has gone from Windows 7 to Windows 8 to Windows 10. It has only crashed once during this time.

I haven't reinstalled Windows since I got Windows 10 when it was released.

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