News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:New superconductor microprocessor yields a substantial bo... by qayxc on Wednesday January 13, 2021 @07:53PM (#25770274)
This is a very complex topic and there's a bunch of reasons for that.

And no, software efficiency isn't even the main factor. Not even close.

Just a few pointers: polling on peripherals instead of interrupts (i.e. USB vs. PS/2 and DIN) introducing input lag, software no longer running in ring-0 while being the sole process that owns all the hardware, concurrent processes and context switches, portability (and the required layers of abstraction and indirection), etc.

It's a bit cheap to blame developers while at the same time taking for granted that you can even do what you can do with modern hard- and software.

Everything comes at a price and even MenuetOS [1] will have worse input lag and be less responsive than an Apple II, simply because you'll likely have USB keyboard and mouse and an LCD monitor connected to it.

[1] http://menuetos.net

Re:New superconductor microprocessor yields a substantial bo... by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Thursday January 14, 2021 @12:16AM (#25772399)
Apple II? I'm talking about things like VS6 vs modern VS. Even when performing the same tasks, which means modern VS has no reason to be doing more work than VS6, the modern one is less responsive. There are several videos on youtube demonstrating the dramatic difference.
Re:New superconductor microprocessor yields a substantial bo... by qayxc on Thursday January 14, 2021 @02:26PM (#25781048)
Well 20-ish years ago when I was working with VS6, it ran like dog shit on contemporary hardware.

Big projects would pretty much kill it and the occasional crash was to be expected.

Sure, firing up VS6 on more modern hardware let it fly by comparison, but then again its features paled in comparison to those available with modern VS.

On the other hand, I don't use VS anymore, since VSCode is all I need and runs faster than VS6 back then (even on my 5 year old mid-range laptop) so no complains there.

Re:New superconductor microprocessor yields a substantial bo... by throwaway2048 on Wednesday January 13, 2021 @10:22PM (#25771468)
I don't think laggy electron apps have much to do with usb devices and ring 0.