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Comment by lebean | Hacker News Reader

Think more along the lines of von Neumann machines, rather than a M2 Macbook Pro. The 40s rather than right now. "Modern" can denote a specific era in the past, or the current time, depending on the context in which the word is used.

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>"Modern" can denote a specific era in the past

No, it can't. Modern can not refer to a previous era.

This is a silly argument but it very much can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_era

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_period

>The modern era[a] is the period of human history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended around 1500 AD) up to the present.

This was coined in around 1500 AD to refer to the current era. If the present is the modern era, then that backs up my position that modern refers to the current time.

Your position was that it can only possibly refer to the current time which is clearly inaccurate as shown many times throughout this pedantithread. The fact that it sometimes or even often refers to that doesn't make it any less inaccurate.

Definition of "modern art": "Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s".

via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art

"Modern" can refer to a previous era, and in fact it does!

This is a set phrase. When the phrase was coined modern did refer to the current era. Modern computer is not a set phrase coined back in the 40s.

But this is just a matter of how thinly one chooses to partition the axis of time. You cannot have as many eras as points in time. Therefore, eras are intervals of time. So today and the 1940s can well belong to the same era, esp. given that human history extends thousands of years to the past.

In the context of computing, due to how fast things have progressed, the interval of time is relatively short.

This is incredibly incorrect. If you are going to bore Hacker News with pedantry-- at least bother to look up that the "modern" era ended somewhere around 1945.

So yes, it refers to a specific era in the past.

The modern era was the current era when that term was coined. The usage of modern in modern computers does not refer to the modern era. Here is a link to an example of Intel using the term "Modern CPU Architecture."

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-tec...

Here Intel is talking about CPUs from the present. It isn't talking about CPUs from the 1940s.

Quite a hill to die on. If I were to exhibit the same kind of pedantry you are, where a compound noun can have exactly one meaning regardless of context and specialized terms are disallowed, then I'd point out that computer != CPU so your example is irrelevant.

Folks here are genuinely trying to help. "Modern computer" clearly has a special meaning in the context of building a computer from scratch; the term is used in contrast to calculators or specialized number-crunching machines, both of which are computers and are of interest to tinkerers.

>where a compound noun can have exactly one meaning

I am not trying to assert that. In computing when setting out to design or make something "modern" that has 1 expected meaning.

>then I'd point out that computer != CPU

The book focuses on the CPU part of the computer, but the way memory, graphics, and input is done isn't modern either.

>the term is used in contrast to calculators or specialized number-crunching machines

Those have CPUs in them too and most would be more advanced than the CPU from this book.

I think you're looking for the term "contemporary", at least in the context of art and design.

Man, there's not only postmodern, there's post-contemporary. Where do you even go from there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-contemporary

That's it. We're nearing the end of time. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is it. I had a good time, thanks everyone! Good bye.

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