less_retarded_wiki/modern.md
Miloslav Ciz 6dc4eddbb7 ENGLISH
2022-03-19 16:39:10 +01:00

3.1 KiB

Modern

Modern software/hardware might as well be synonymous with shit.

Modern Vs Old Technology

It's sad and dangerous that newer generation won't even remember technology used to be better, people will soon think that status quo is the best we can do. That is wrong. It is important we leave here a note on at least a few way in which old was much better.

And before you say "it was faster and longer on battery etc. because it was simpler" -- yes, that is exactly the point.

  • Old technology was simpler and better engineered with minimum bloat. Fewer incompetent people were present in the field and capitalism wasn't yet pushing as hard on extreme development speed and abuse of the user, products competed in true usefulness.
  • Old computers were faster and astronomically more efficient. Computers with a few MhZ single-core CPU and under a megabyte of RAM booted faster to DOS than modern computers boot to Windows 10, despite Moore's law (this shittiness is known as Wirth's law). Old tech also reacted faster to input (had shorter lag) thanks to shorter input and output processing pipelines. { I've heard this confirmed from John Carmack in a talk on his development of VR. ~drummyfish }
  • Old devices such as cell phones lasted much, much longer on battery. The old phones such as Nokia 3310 would last long over a week on stand-by.
  • Old software was shipped finished, complete and with minimum bugs. Nowadays newly released "apps" and games are normally released unfinished, even in pre-alpha states and even "finished" ones have bugs often rendering the software unsuable (see Cyberpunk 2077, GTA: Definiteve Edition etc.), user is supposed to wait years for fixes (without any guarantees), pay for content or even subscriptions. Old software was difficult or even impossible to patch (e.g. on Gameboy) so it had to work.
  • Old tech had minimum malicious features. There wasn't spyware in CPUs, DRM was either absent or primitive, there weren't ads in file explorers, there weren't microtransactions in games, there weren't autoupdates, there weren't psychologically abusive social networks, technology was designed to last, not to be consoomed, there was much less censhorship.
  • Old tech was much easier to modify and customize, thanks to not being so overcomplicated and not containing so many anti-repair "features".
  • Old tech was much more independent, did not require Internet connectivity, subscription etc.
  • There was minimum bullshit. True usefulness was more important than killer features to help marketing.
  • Old tech was simpler and more fun to program, allowing direct access to hardware, not complicating things with OOP and similar shit, and so old programmers were more productive.