8 Nov
2006
8 Nov
'06
1:09 p.m.
Rumor has it that John Foust may have mentioned these words:
At 01:19 PM 11/7/2006, der Mouse wrote:
Because back then, we could actually *use* the speed!
There are at least two PC operating systems that
cost $0 and work
perfectly well on hardware that's available for $0 because the latest
bloatware no longer runs tolerably on it.
I don't know what's with you retro kids these days. Back in the
old days, speed was cool. You wanted a faster machine. Now that
the most whizzy machines are 1/100th the price (in inflation-adjusted
dollars) you're still playing with the stuff in the dumpster.
Because it's *kewl.* ;-)
Programs still start more quickly on a faster CPU.
Bzzzt. Wrong answer.
TEXT on my Tandy 200 starts one heckuva lot faster at 2.4Mhz than
OpenOffice on my 2.4 GHz.
OK, now you're gonna start crying "Straw-man argument."
a) I don't care ;-) ;-) and...
b) Don't you mean "programs of roughly equal size will start more quickly
on systems with a faster *hard drive* and more memory?" CPU speed means
very little nowadays...
Even then, I'd much rather have access to a stripped-down text-only 256K OS
that can boot from the flash rom instantly instead of the rigamarole that
exists currently. Why don't I shut up and write it? x86 assembly sucks. ;-)
That translates back to the first sentence I wrote: Nowadays, you really
can't *access* the speed of the CPU; too many other bottlenecks get in the
way... and reducing those bottlenecks (low latency RAM, 15K RPM hard
drives) *does* cost a ton of money...
IMHO & all that jazz....
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate."
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein
zmerch at 30below.com |