Re:Ask HN: What have we lost in tech and society?
by mikewarot on Friday September 23, 2022 @07:26PM
(#32958259)
We've lost the ability to just try software, stacks and stacks of floppy disks full, without risking everything in our computer.
We've lost the ability to just copy and run programs. The "portable software" movement is a step back in that direction.
We've lost the ability to have our own systems that others could access with a phone call, and instead now have internet "access" that actively prevents that type of use.
We lost the local communities that would form on these small shared systems, and the innovation that spawned from them.
We've lost the ability to get used to a program and just have it work for decades without incident. There are people who still would rather be using WordPerfect for MS-DOS.
We've lost hardware simple enough to comprehend, modify, repair, and trust. There's no single OS in charge of your PC, there are firmware systems under the OS taking care of things in the chipset, the SSDs and other interfaces.
We've lost the knowledge that no matter what, the next computer or OS would at least run things at the same speed, if not much faster.
We've lost 80x25 characters as a standard screen size, and the simplicity of a common text based interface that reliably acted the same on all compatible computers.
We lost manuals that actually told you all you needed to know. We also lost software stable enough in user interface that the book was still useful later.
Not all the losses were bad
We lost toggle switch or hex keypad boot code that had to be typed in manual. -- Yay!
We lost cassette tape based data and program storage. -- Yay!
We lost hardware that failed often enough you'd learn how to fix it. -- Yay!
We've lost the ability to just copy and run programs. The "portable software" movement is a step back in that direction.
We've lost the ability to have our own systems that others could access with a phone call, and instead now have internet "access" that actively prevents that type of use.
We lost the local communities that would form on these small shared systems, and the innovation that spawned from them.
We've lost the ability to get used to a program and just have it work for decades without incident. There are people who still would rather be using WordPerfect for MS-DOS.
We've lost hardware simple enough to comprehend, modify, repair, and trust. There's no single OS in charge of your PC, there are firmware systems under the OS taking care of things in the chipset, the SSDs and other interfaces.
We've lost the knowledge that no matter what, the next computer or OS would at least run things at the same speed, if not much faster.
We've lost 80x25 characters as a standard screen size, and the simplicity of a common text based interface that reliably acted the same on all compatible computers.
We lost manuals that actually told you all you needed to know. We also lost software stable enough in user interface that the book was still useful later.
Not all the losses were bad
We lost toggle switch or hex keypad boot code that had to be typed in manual. -- Yay!
We lost cassette tape based data and program storage. -- Yay!
We lost hardware that failed often enough you'd learn how to fix it. -- Yay!