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"Darren New" <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote in message
news:47d2f829$1@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw wrote:
> > I've never heard of Colossal cave.
>
> AKA "Adventure", aka the first ever computer adventure-style game. (Was
> it the first game at all?)
No idea. First one I remember playing was Asteroids (On a Sharp computer)
sometime around 1984 or so.
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>> Well, two things:
>>
>> 1. It has 2x the spatial resolution in both directions. That doesn't
>> sound particularly earth-shattering, even on paper.
>>
>> 2. I saw two displays side-by-side in a shop. The one marked HD was
>> certainly clearer. But it didn't make me go "wow, that's AMAZING!"
>> Actually it just made me go "oh, OK, so it's 10% more crisp. And you
>> want HOW MANY thousand pounds for this one??"
>
> Thousands of pounds? Maybe 5 years ago.
Or maybe they set the display up next to the most expensive equipment in
the shop?
> I've played X-box games on both my old TV and the new LCD. The difference is
> exceptional. I couldn't even read half the text on the old TV. On the new,
> it's crystal clear.
I've tried connecting my laptop to a normal TV. *Everything* is unreadable!
But then, I sit about 2 feet away from my laptop's screen A TV is
usually at least 12 feet away, if not more...
> Normal DVDs don't show so much difference, but there's still a very
> noticable difference in display quality. I watched the sceen with Gandalf
> and the Balrog of Moria on the new TV and it was sooo clear.
Oddly, whenever I watch DVDs on my PC, I'm astounded by how crappy the
picture looks. Yet on a normal TV it looks perfectly OK. Weird... I
guess the low-quality TV display hides more of the imperfections?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47d2f9d5$1@news.povray.org...
>
> I've tried connecting my laptop to a normal TV. *Everything* is
unreadable!
I connected my server to the new TV. Crystal clear, and that's with me
sitting over a meter away.
Here's to computing from the couch.
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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> 1. At the time, Doom was reputed to require insanely expensive high-end
>> hardware to run usably.
>
> That would be a 486, yes. It worked in a 386, but 486 was recommended.
SX or DX? ;-)
>> 4. It was slow as hell!
>
> With current computers you could run Doom at 1600x1200 in the original
> software rendering mode without problems (assuming it would support those
> resolutions, which it doesn't, at least not without heavy modifications
> of the source code, AFAIK).
Impressive what 10 years of evolution can do, eh?
And yet, M$ Word is still as slow today as it was all those years ago...
I guess some things never change. :-S
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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"Nicolas Alvarez" <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote in message
news:47d2f8c5$1@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw escribió:
> > "Nicolas Alvarez" <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote in
message
> > news:47d2ddaa$1@news.povray.org...
> >
> >> I don't know anyone (personally, and in the same country as me) who is
> >> geeky enough to know about D&D anyway. So even if it sounded
interesting
> >> to me (which it doesn't), who would I play with?
> >
> > What country do you live in?
> > http://www.treasuretables.org/ways-to-find-rpg-players
>
> ...if I *was* interested, which I'm not...
You never know until you've tried..
(doing best salesperson impersonation)
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Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
> news:47d2f829$1@news.povray.org...
>> Gail Shaw wrote:
>>> I've never heard of Colossal cave.
>> AKA "Adventure", aka the first ever computer adventure-style game. (Was
>> it the first game at all?)
>
> No idea. First one I remember playing was Asteroids (On a Sharp computer)
> sometime around 1984 or so.
Adventure was written in 1976, slightly before Apple went into business
at all. The wiki article is actually pretty amusing. I have the source
listing for Adventure 550 in Fortran. :-)
It's certainly the first largely-popular game, in much the same way that
PONG was pretty much the first big video game.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Gail Shaw wrote:
> > I've never heard of Colossal cave.
> AKA "Adventure", aka the first ever computer adventure-style game. (Was
> it the first game at all?)
Defining what is the "first computer game ever created" is a bit more
difficult than one might thing.
Some argue that the first one was a tennis game someone programmed using
an analog oscilloscope as display in the 1950's.
--
- Warp
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Gail Shaw wrote:
> You never know until you've tried..
> (doing best salesperson impersonation)
Hmm, and I'll bet you've met a lot of salepeople in your line of work
too. ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47d2fb28$1@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw wrote:
>
> > You never know until you've tried..
> > (doing best salesperson impersonation)
>
> Hmm, and I'll bet you've met a lot of salepeople in your line of work
> too. ;-)
None if I can help it.
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>> Hmm, and I'll bet you've met a lot of salepeople in your line of work
>> too. ;-)
>
> None if I can help it.
TELL ME YOUR SECRET!! >_<
I am *so* fed up of that Russian girl trying to sell me AV licenses...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> And yet, M$ Word is still as slow today as it was all those years ago...
No, it isn't. Take MS Word from those days and run it in a modern
computer and let's see if it's as slow as then.
--
- Warp
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Warp escribió:
> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> And yet, M$ Word is still as slow today as it was all those years ago...
>
> No, it isn't. Take MS Word from those days and run it in a modern
> computer and let's see if it's as slow as then.
He means a *current* Word on a *current* computer is as slow as the old
Word on an old computer. Software gets slower at around the same rate as
computers get faster (well, GUI stuff... CPU-intensive software like
POV-Ray does notice the speedups, or the increase in quality).
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> He means a *current* Word on a *current* computer is as slow as the old
> Word on an old computer. Software gets slower at around the same rate as
> computers get faster.
And I find this extremely annoying. But apparently I am entirely alone
in this opinion, so...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>
> And I find this extremely annoying. But apparently I am entirely alone
> in this opinion, so...
>
Wrong. I share the annoynment.
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:56:23 -0500, Warp wrote:
> I'm amazed how you again and again succeed in showing your ignorance
> about basic things all computer and other nerds know.
Some people live very sheltered lives.
Jim
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:19:18 -0500, Warp wrote:
>> - I have only watched about 3 episodes of Babylon 5. The only cool
>> thing about it was the graphics being done on an Amiga.
>
> Yet you know what B5 is?
A space opera/soap opera set in space. Yes, I watched it....
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:56:23 -0500, Warp wrote:
>
>> I'm amazed how you again and again succeed in showing your ignorance
>> about basic things all computer and other nerds know.
>
> Some people live very sheltered lives.
...or just aren't interested in specific aspects of the world.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
> Warp escribió:
> > Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> And yet, M$ Word is still as slow today as it was all those years ago...
> >
> > No, it isn't. Take MS Word from those days and run it in a modern
> > computer and let's see if it's as slow as then.
> He means a *current* Word on a *current* computer is as slow as the old
> Word on an old computer.
I know that he meant that, and my answer was that he is comparing apples
with oranges.
Just because the two pieces of software have been given the same name and
both can be used for the same task doesn't mean that they are the *same*
software. They are two different programs. Saying "Word is *still* as slow
as it was 10 years ago" is wrong: No it isn't. He is comparing the 10yo
program called "Word" with a modern program called "Word" which doesn't
share anything else than the name (and maybe some subroutines perhaps).
These two softwares can be distinguished by their version number, which
is usually mentioned in the name of the software.
> Software gets slower at around the same rate as
> computers get faster
Not true. Software *does more* at the same rate as computing power
allows it.
Sure, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 played in a 2GHz Pentium4 may be
"as slow as" Doom played in a 33MHz 486 in terms of framerate, but
that's still comparing apples with oranges. The only thing these two
pieces of software have in common is that they are both FPS games.
HL2:Ep2 is *doing more* than Doom.
--
- Warp
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:15:37 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> The mainstream news seems to only be interested in telling you about all
> the BAD news. It's damn depressing to watch.
Exactly my sentiments. I never watch the news myself, because all it is
over here in the US is generally:
1. Politics (which I follow elsewhere)
2. A body count
3. The Weather (which I can get anytime I want online)
4. Sports (which I don't care about)
5. Some feel-good story about a family saved by their pet or some other
nonsense like that.
#2 generally takes up most of the newscasts I've seen - accidents,
shootings, robberies, etc. If I want to be scared, I'll watch a horror
movie.
Jim
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Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > He means a *current* Word on a *current* computer is as slow as the old
> > Word on an old computer. Software gets slower at around the same rate as
> > computers get faster.
> And I find this extremely annoying. But apparently I am entirely alone
> in this opinion, so...
If you liked Word from 10 years ago, nothing stops you from taking it
and using it in your current supercomputer. It will be much faster than
it was 10 years ago.
You seem to refuse to accept that modern software *does more* than 10
years old software. You always talk as if they did the *exact same thing*,
just much more slowly.
--
- Warp
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Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> >
> > And I find this extremely annoying. But apparently I am entirely alone
> > in this opinion, so...
> Wrong. I share the annoynment.
The solution is rather simple: Just use the old software. What's
stopping you?
--
- Warp
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:09:08 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>
>> He means a *current* Word on a *current* computer is as slow as the old
>> Word on an old computer. Software gets slower at around the same rate
>> as computers get faster.
>
> And I find this extremely annoying. But apparently I am entirely alone
> in this opinion, so...
Nope, that's something that's pissed me off about the computing industry
for many, many years.
If anything, it takes longer now to do things on a computer than it did
10 years ago, because the machines are doing so much more in the OS and
with other apps, everything slows down significantly.
So while the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 'x' amount of
time, the amount of time it takes to actually do a task generally has
increased by a proportional amount.
Some tasks, obviously, this doesn't apply to. Rendering anything in POV-
Ray on a V20 processor was painful - but something I did often in the
early 90's. Now it's nice and fast.
But as tools have gotten more complex, people's ability to use then
effectively has been reduced significantly.
Jim
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On 8 Mar 2008 15:45:50 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>
> Defining what is the "first computer game ever created" is a bit more
>difficult than one might thing.
The first one I played was a golf game in 1972 the first text game was Kingdom
in about 1975.
Regards
Stephen
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> If anything, it takes longer now to do things on a computer than it did
> 10 years ago
I believe this to be just a false memory in most cases. Do you have any
concrete examples?
> But as tools have gotten more complex, people's ability to use then
> effectively has been reduced significantly.
Really? I have noticed the exact opposite trend. Just in the Windows
side of the world, for example updating software is easier than ever:
In many cases the software updates itself automatically without you
having to do anything about it. Even if you have to start the updating
manually, it's usually pretty automated.
This update doesn't require all your computer resources, but you can
nowadays actually do something else while it's updating, and you won't
even notice.
If I want to open a gigantic image in basically any software, it takes
but a split second, while over a decade ago it could take a long time.
Making modidications to the image is extremely fast, while over a decade
ago it could take minutes.
Want to edit the image at 1600x1200 resolution to get a larger editing
area? No problem. Over a decade ago you were lucky if you got a 1024x768
resolution, and that at an acceptable speed.
Want to attach the image to an email (yeah, bad thing to do, but it is
something people do)? Kaboom -> Split second and there it is. Not waiting
for tens of seconds for it to do it.
Want to watch some mpeg4-encoded video? It launches almost immediately
and playing it takes something like 20% of your CPU. If you like, you
can do other things while watching the video. Over a decade ago you
couldn't even play that kind of video because the computer was not
powerful enough. Even playing an mp3 could take most of the CPU time.
And let's not talk about 3D modeling software and real-time previews
(just imagine using a software like Poser 15 years ago.)
Video editing? You could just dream of it 15 years ago.
Sound editing? Yes, perfectly possible 15 years ago, if you had the
time to wait. Today, a breeze.
Browsing the internet with a web browser? Fast and efficient nowadays,
sluggish 15 years ago.
Maybe it's just me.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> That would be a 486, yes. It worked in a 386, but 486 was recommended.
Actually, I'm kind of amused. I realized the files in the boot partition
for my Linux are bigger than you could put on the biggest hard drive
available for the IBM AT.
Then again, I can comfortably fit a memory chip with several orders of
magnitude more storage than the IBM AT could handle up my nose.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > That would be a 486, yes. It worked in a 386, but 486 was recommended.
> Actually, I'm kind of amused. I realized the files in the boot partition
> for my Linux are bigger than you could put on the biggest hard drive
> available for the IBM AT.
I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say.
(Are you expecting linux to do the same things it's doing now but only
use a tiny amount of disk space? How do you expect it to do that miracle?)
--
- Warp
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Warp escribió:
> Really? I have noticed the exact opposite trend. Just in the Windows
> side of the world, for example updating software is easier than ever:
> In many cases the software updates itself automatically without you
> having to do anything about it. Even if you have to start the updating
> manually, it's usually pretty automated.
Yep, updates without you even noticing, then annoys you to death to
reboot. With a countdown. Want to reboot now, or want me to annoy you
again in 10 minutes? If you don't click anything in 5 minutes, I'll
reboot anyway.
The only thing that popup is missing is Clippy.
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Warp escribió:
> Not true. Software *does more* at the same rate as computing power
> allows it.
But if you want to do the same simple thing you did before (ie. you
don't want it to "do more") with modern software, it's still slower.
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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> That would be a 486, yes. It worked in a 386, but 486 was recommended.
>
>> Actually, I'm kind of amused. I realized the files in the boot partition
>> for my Linux are bigger than you could put on the biggest hard drive
>> available for the IBM AT.
>
> I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say.
Nothing except that I'm amazed at how fast disk sizes grow. It wasn't a
cut on Linux. I just don't have any idea how big the "boot partition"
on a Windows machine would need to be. (Unless you only count NTLDR et
al.) I was merely making an observation.
People complain about "software bloat", and it always seemed like a
silly complaint. I have a five-year-old machine, and I can't even buy a
disk drive as small as twice as big as what's in there now.
It used to be 32 meg was as huge as it got on a desktop machine. Now
that won't even be enough RAM to boot a modern desktop OS, let alone a
enough disk space.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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"Nicolas Alvarez" <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> a écrit dans le
message de news: 47d31bb8$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp escribió:
>> Not true. Software *does more* at the same rate as computing power
>> allows it.
>
> But if you want to do the same simple thing you did before (ie. you don't
> want it to "do more") with modern software, it's still slower.
Like Warp, I'd like to see hard data about that. I've been using computers
for engineering and office work since 1983 (I even punched cards, just to
show you how old I am) and the "modern software is bloated" meme goes
completely contrary to my experience. If anything, I keep being amazed at
the things I'm able to do now, particularly when I look at my archives and
at the things I did back then that seemed to me, at the time, difficult and
slow. I mean, lots of the stuff that people take for granted nowadays, like
printing stuff, could be just painful then.
And I *** have *** metrics: for instance, I've been running on a regular
basis a large and complex set of calculations and queries from a big
database that I've been developing since 1989 (one year before you were
born!). When I started, these processes took one entire day (often I let it
run during the week-end). Sometimes I realised that I had done a mistake so
I had to rerun it (or parts of it). Now this set of processes, expanded to
much more complex ones, runs in less than two hours, even though the
database is 10 times larger. In fact, I gradually increased the complexity
of the queries over the years to take advantage of speed, RAM, disc space
and software abilities. And that's just an example: most of the stuff I do
routinely now would have been extremely difficult 10 years ago, and pure
science-fiction (on a desktop at least) 20 years ago.
G.
--
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer art
- Posters
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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
> Yep, updates without you even noticing, then annoys you to death to
> reboot.
Hardly any program nowadays requires you to reboot anymore after
installation. That was in the Windows 3.x days.
Some do, like for example firewall programs, but that's understandable.
> With a countdown. Want to reboot now, or want me to annoy you
> again in 10 minutes?
Wasn't there an option somewhere to stop windows autoupdate from
showing those dialogs?
--
- Warp
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Warp escribió:
> Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
>> Yep, updates without you even noticing, then annoys you to death to
>> reboot.
>
> Hardly any program nowadays requires you to reboot anymore after
> installation. That was in the Windows 3.x days.
All Windows updates do.
>> With a countdown. Want to reboot now, or want me to annoy you
>> again in 10 minutes?
>
> Wasn't there an option somewhere to stop windows autoupdate from
> showing those dialogs?
Yes. Not letting it install automatically.
Set it to something like "download but ask me before installing". Then
whenever you're ready to reboot, you install them and reboot.
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Nothing except that I'm amazed at how fast disk sizes grow.
Not only do they grow a lot, they get incredibly cheap. Same for RAM.
I remember when I bought 4 megabytes of extra RAM for my 486. It costed
something like (when converted) 250 US dollars. Nowadays I can buy 1 gigabyte
of RAM with less than half that amount of money.
(Somehow the cost of RAM plummeted at an incredible rate at some point.)
> It used to be 32 meg was as huge as it got on a desktop machine. Now
> that won't even be enough RAM to boot a modern desktop OS, let alone a
> enough disk space.
I think you could perfectly well fit an ultra-small linux distro which
uses a light-weight window manager in a bootable 32MB hard disk. If it's
light-weight enough, it probably could even run with 32MB of RAM.
--
- Warp
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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
> > Hardly any program nowadays requires you to reboot anymore after
> > installation. That was in the Windows 3.x days.
> All Windows updates do.
Actually they don't *require* it, they just nag you to do it, by default.
> >> With a countdown. Want to reboot now, or want me to annoy you
> >> again in 10 minutes?
> >
> > Wasn't there an option somewhere to stop windows autoupdate from
> > showing those dialogs?
> Yes. Not letting it install automatically.
No, I meant that I faintly remember there was a way to have automatic
updates *and* not having it to nag about the rebooting.
--
- Warp
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:40:50 -0500, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> If anything, it takes longer now to do things on a computer than it did
>> 10 years ago
>
> I believe this to be just a false memory in most cases. Do you have
> any
> concrete examples?
Boot DOS. Boot Windows. Compare the boot times.
Create a letter using WordPerfect 5.1. Create a letter using Microsoft
Word 2003. Including the time just to start the applications, WP51
starts quicker, and you finish quicker.
In both cases, use older machines, say, a PS/2 model 30 for the older
tests, and a modern 64-bit machine for the Windows tests.
It's not a false memory, it's demonstrable fact.
>> But as tools have gotten more complex, people's ability to use then
>> effectively has been reduced significantly.
>
> Really? I have noticed the exact opposite trend. Just in the Windows
> side of the world, for example updating software is easier than ever: In
> many cases the software updates itself automatically without you having
> to do anything about it. Even if you have to start the updating
> manually, it's usually pretty automated.
And when the automated updates screw the machine up, the user is
basically screwed.
> This update doesn't require all your computer resources, but you can
> nowadays actually do something else while it's updating, and you won't
> even notice.
> If I want to open a gigantic image in basically any software, it takes
> but a split second, while over a decade ago it could take a long time.
> Making modidications to the image is extremely fast, while over a decade
> ago it could take minutes.
As I said, there are some tasks that are faster on modern equipment with
modern software. But the majority of people need a word processor, a
spreadsheet, and access to the 'net. Maybe presentation software.
Perhaps you missed the bit where I said that certain things are faster.
> Browsing the internet with a web browser? Fast and efficient nowadays,
> sluggish 15 years ago.
With a decent connection to the 'net, surfing the web 15 years ago was
generally faster, if only because the amount of crap that people put on
web pages was reduced. 15 years ago, the big thing being talked about
was whether or not to use blink tags for $DEITY's sake. Now it's all
about flash animations and dynamically updating web applications which
should *really* be implemented not using web technologies, but rather
using desktop development technologies.
Jim
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:16:53 -0500, Warp wrote:
> Hardly any program nowadays requires you to reboot anymore after
> installation. That was in the Windows 3.x days.
You clearly haven't installed Windows recently, have you?
My stepson reinstalled his Windows XP installation a few weeks ago. It
took 3 freakin' days to get the system built properly, because the
machine needed so many reboots for driver installations, updates applied
to the system - and he couldn't install his wireless card driver until he
plugged the machine into an Ethernet port to do the stupid "Windows
Activation" bull.
Jim
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:07:09 -0500, Warp wrote:
> I think you could perfectly well fit an ultra-small linux distro which
> uses a light-weight window manager in a bootable 32MB hard disk. If it's
> light-weight enough, it probably could even run with 32MB of RAM.
I ran a very lightweight Linux distro on a 386 with a maximum memory
capacity of 16 MB. The machine physically couldn't take more memory.
Jim
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Jim Henderson escribió:
> My stepson reinstalled his Windows XP installation a few weeks ago. It
> took 3 freakin' days to get the system built properly, because the
> machine needed so many reboots for driver installations, updates applied
> to the system - and he couldn't install his wireless card driver until he
> plugged the machine into an Ethernet port to do the stupid "Windows
> Activation" bull.
And I bet installing the network card made Windows say "New hardware
found. Would you like to search for drivers on Internet?" Erm, guess
what, I can't get on Internet until I install the new hardware!
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Jim Henderson escribió:
> With a decent connection to the 'net, surfing the web 15 years ago was
> generally faster, if only because the amount of crap that people put on
> web pages was reduced. 15 years ago, the big thing being talked about
> was whether or not to use blink tags for $DEITY's sake. Now it's all
> about flash animations and dynamically updating web applications which
> should *really* be implemented not using web technologies, but rather
> using desktop development technologies.
OMG somebody with common sense...
Some months ago I started writing my own NNTP server just so I could
read web forums from Thunderbird, along with news.povray.org. The idea
was writing both the server and the web scraper. Yet another abandoned
project, for now.
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On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:16:25 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:56:23 -0500, Warp wrote:
>>
>>> I'm amazed how you again and again succeed in showing your ignorance
>>> about basic things all computer and other nerds know.
>>
>> Some people live very sheltered lives.
>
> ...or just aren't interested in specific aspects of the world.
There is that as well - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Some of the folks here have struck a nerve with me by continuing to "pick
on" you. That *normally* comes out of a need to feel superior to someone
- I grew up being the target of that kind of behaviour from my peers, and
I really won't stand for it when I see people doing it to others.
And it seems especially ridiculous to me for *adults* having the need to
feel superior by making fun of someone who hasn't had the same common
experience they have had or likes different things, or whatever. That
smacks of serious insecurity on the part of those who are doing the
"teasing".
This constant need that some members here have to continue to put Andy
down *must* stop. I'm not going to name names - you know who you are.
Knock it off already.
Jim
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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
> According to Wikipedia, Wing Commander was
> released the year I was born.
suddenly, I feel terribly old.
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On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:05:05 -0200, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Jim Henderson escribió:
>> With a decent connection to the 'net, surfing the web 15 years ago was
>> generally faster, if only because the amount of crap that people put on
>> web pages was reduced. 15 years ago, the big thing being talked about
>> was whether or not to use blink tags for $DEITY's sake. Now it's all
>> about flash animations and dynamically updating web applications which
>> should *really* be implemented not using web technologies, but rather
>> using desktop development technologies.
>
> OMG somebody with common sense...
>
> Some months ago I started writing my own NNTP server just so I could
> read web forums from Thunderbird, along with news.povray.org. The idea
> was writing both the server and the web scraper. Yet another abandoned
> project, for now.
I wish more software projects would recognize a few things:
1. NNTP is very efficient for those who read lots of messages
2. It's not impossible to have web-based forums and still provide an
NNTP interface (vBulletin is quite good for this, actually)
3. Creating 500,000 different discussion areas that are not connected
doesn't make your project *better*, it dilutes the expertise to a point
that it actually weakens the project.
One of the reasons I really like the POVRay project - good, strong,
community and a common-sense approach to managing that community.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Create a letter using WordPerfect 5.1. Create a letter using Microsoft
> Word 2003. Including the time just to start the applications, WP51
> starts quicker, and you finish quicker.
A more appropriate comparison would be WordPerfect 5.1 to Wordpad if
you're just doing bare-bones word processing that needs a little
formatted text.
> As I said, there are some tasks that are faster on modern equipment with
> modern software. But the majority of people need a word processor, a
> spreadsheet, and access to the 'net. Maybe presentation software.
The majority of people these days run most commonly a web browser (with
several windows/tabs open *at the same time*), some sort of file sharing
program (BitTorrent, whatever other P2P clients are popular these days),
iTunes if they have an iPod *shudder*, music/video player of choice,
some kind of game from Freecell to Crysis, an instant messaging program,
an antivirus program.
A 'casual computer user' is far more likely these days to just have
their computer for playing WoW and chatting than typing letters or doing
spreadsheets.
Or did you mean *business* users? *They're* the ones who need the word
processor, spreadsheet, access to the 'net and presentation software. I
don't even have presentation software installed.
> With a decent connection to the 'net, surfing the web 15 years ago was
> generally faster, if only because the amount of crap that people put on
> web pages was reduced.
1993, surfing the web was *not* generally faster. The web was this
strange new thing, people used gifs more often than jpegs, *didn't* use
img size tags so the browser (if it had the ability, given the
attributes) would know how to do page layout so you didn't see anything
until the page finished loading, had background images on every page
whether it was useful or not, loaded MIDI or wav files to play at full
volume, and not split their site into useful subsections so you just had
one long long page...
...great heavens, I just described the average MySpace page.
*bangs head against wall*
Nowadays, you can get more garbage in a lot less time. :P
--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.digitalartsuk.com
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GFA dpu- s: a?-- C++(++++) U P? L E--- W++(+++)>$
N++ o? K- w(+) O? M-(--) V? PS+(+++) PE(--) Y(--)
PGP-(--) t* 5++>+++++ X+ R* tv+ b++(+++) DI
D++(---) G(++) e*>++ h+ !r--- !y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
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On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:12:04 -0500, Tim Cook wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Create a letter using WordPerfect 5.1. Create a letter using Microsoft
>> Word 2003. Including the time just to start the applications, WP51
>> starts quicker, and you finish quicker.
>
> A more appropriate comparison would be WordPerfect 5.1 to Wordpad if
> you're just doing bare-bones word processing that needs a little
> formatted text.
WordPad didn't exist on DOS. EDIT did, but most people used a program
like WordPerfect rather than EDIT. EDIT was used for changing
autoexec.bat, config.sys, etc.
>> As I said, there are some tasks that are faster on modern equipment
>> with modern software. But the majority of people need a word
>> processor, a spreadsheet, and access to the 'net. Maybe presentation
>> software.
>
> The majority of people these days run most commonly a web browser (with
> several windows/tabs open *at the same time*), some sort of file sharing
> program (BitTorrent, whatever other P2P clients are popular these days),
> iTunes if they have an iPod *shudder*, music/video player of choice,
> some kind of game from Freecell to Crysis, an instant messaging program,
> an antivirus program.
>
> A 'casual computer user' is far more likely these days to just have
> their computer for playing WoW and chatting than typing letters or doing
> spreadsheets.
>
> Or did you mean *business* users? *They're* the ones who need the word
> processor, spreadsheet, access to the 'net and presentation software. I
> don't even have presentation software installed.
Yes, business users. When talking about productivity (as I was), you
talk about business apps.
> 1993, surfing the web was *not* generally faster. The web was this
> strange new thing, people used gifs more often than jpegs, *didn't* use
> img size tags so the browser (if it had the ability, given the
> attributes) would know how to do page layout so you didn't see anything
> until the page finished loading, had background images on every page
> whether it was useful or not, loaded MIDI or wav files to play at full
> volume, and not split their site into useful subsections so you just had
> one long long page...
Bingo. I could get a lot of information similar to what's on the web now
over a dialup connection. Try using a dialup connection today.
Why doesn't it work? *Bloat*.
Jim
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On 8 Mar 2008 21:05:53 -0500, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>Some of the folks here have struck a nerve with me by continuing to "pick
>on" you. That *normally* comes out of a need to feel superior to someone
>- I grew up being the target of that kind of behaviour from my peers, and
>I really won't stand for it when I see people doing it to others.
>
>And it seems especially ridiculous to me for *adults* having the need to
>feel superior by making fun of someone who hasn't had the same common
>experience they have had or likes different things, or whatever. That
>smacks of serious insecurity on the part of those who are doing the
>"teasing".
>
>This constant need that some members here have to continue to put Andy
>down *must* stop. I'm not going to name names - you know who you are.
>Knock it off already.
>
Too true
Regards
Stephen
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On 9 Mar 2008 00:44:20 -0500, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>
>Why doesn't it work? *Bloat*.
True but you've got to remember that 15 years ago. The only people who used the
internet were IT folk and did not need to be coddled and who could set up their
own programmes. Bloat is for those who like formatted text and microwave dinners
:)
Regards
Stephen
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Warp wrote:
>
> The solution is rather simple: Just use the old software. What's
> stopping you?
>
Actually, I mostly do. That doesn't prevent me being bugged from the
fact that if software didn't get bloated as fast, there could be more
resources allocated to eg. stability and lower energy consumption
instead of plain speed and price.
But then, it's a marketing world, so those resources would be wasted to
lower the price...
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47d2fd26@news.povray.org...
> >> Hmm, and I'll bet you've met a lot of salepeople in your line of work
> >> too. ;-)
> >
> > None if I can help it.
>
> TELL ME YOUR SECRET!! >_<
>
> I am *so* fed up of that Russian girl trying to sell me AV licenses...
Phone or email?
Email - a good spam filter.
Phone - " Sorry, I'm not interested in anyting you have to sell. Goodbye"
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > I believe this to be just a false memory in most cases. Do you have
> > any
> > concrete examples?
> Boot DOS. Boot Windows. Compare the boot times.
Yeah. Boot to Windows. Don't start the computer at all. Compare the times.
No, we are not comparing apples to oranges here at all.
> Create a letter using WordPerfect 5.1. Create a letter using Microsoft
> Word 2003. Including the time just to start the applications, WP51
> starts quicker, and you finish quicker.
So WP51 starts in 5 seconds and Word starts in 6 seconds, you spend
a half hour writing the letter in both, and when you are finished, you
have spent 1805 seconds in WP51 and 1806 second in Word. Yeah, maybe
you are right. It's slower to do it nowadays.
(Naturally let's forget how long it takes to *print* that letter with
hardware of each era.)
> > Really? I have noticed the exact opposite trend. Just in the Windows
> > side of the world, for example updating software is easier than ever: In
> > many cases the software updates itself automatically without you having
> > to do anything about it. Even if you have to start the updating
> > manually, it's usually pretty automated.
> And when the automated updates screw the machine up, the user is
> basically screwed.
How exactly is this related to the topic?
> > This update doesn't require all your computer resources, but you can
> > nowadays actually do something else while it's updating, and you won't
> > even notice.
> > If I want to open a gigantic image in basically any software, it takes
> > but a split second, while over a decade ago it could take a long time.
> > Making modidications to the image is extremely fast, while over a decade
> > ago it could take minutes.
> As I said, there are some tasks that are faster on modern equipment with
> modern software. But the majority of people need a word processor, a
> spreadsheet, and access to the 'net. Maybe presentation software.
And those run much faster today than they did 15 years ago.
> > Browsing the internet with a web browser? Fast and efficient nowadays,
> > sluggish 15 years ago.
> With a decent connection to the 'net, surfing the web 15 years ago was
> generally faster, if only because the amount of crap that people put on
> web pages was reduced.
That's irrelevant with regard to whether *software* is faster today than
back then or not.
Basically what you are saying there is equivalent to "it takes 1 second
for a 386 to open a 320x240 image, and 5 seconds for an AMD64 to open
a 32000x24000 image, hence the 386 is faster".
> 15 years ago, the big thing being talked about
> was whether or not to use blink tags for $DEITY's sake. Now it's all
> about flash animations and dynamically updating web applications which
> should *really* be implemented not using web technologies, but rather
> using desktop development technologies.
Still irrelevant with regard to whether software is nowadays faster
or not.
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:12:04 -0500, Tim Cook wrote:
> > Jim Henderson wrote:
> >> Create a letter using WordPerfect 5.1. Create a letter using Microsoft
> >> Word 2003. Including the time just to start the applications, WP51
> >> starts quicker, and you finish quicker.
> >
> > A more appropriate comparison would be WordPerfect 5.1 to Wordpad if
> > you're just doing bare-bones word processing that needs a little
> > formatted text.
> WordPad didn't exist on DOS.
Neither did Word 2003. I completely fail to see your point.
--
- Warp
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