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Re:Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It? by jcranmer on Thursday October 09, 2025 @08:10PM (#45534306)
30 years ago, right before Windows 95 came out, Windows was a 16-bit OS and the modern versions of Windows no longer support 16-bit programs. PCIe came out only in 2003, and I don't know that PCIe slots can support PCI. SATA is also from 2003. Even USB originally came out in 1996, and the only pre-USB connector slot I have on my computer is a PS/2 port (which honestly surprises me). For monitor connections, VGA and DVI (1999!) have died off, and their successors (HDMI, DisplayPort) are only in the 2000's.

So pretty much none of the peripherals--including things like system memory and disk drives, do note--from a computer in 1995 can talk using any of the protocols a modern computer supports (save maybe a mouse and keyboard) and require compatibility adapters to connect, while also pretty much none of the software works without going through custom compatibility layers. And based on my experience trying to get a 31-year old Win16 application running on a modern computer, those compatibility layers have some issues.

Re:Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It? by crote on Thursday October 09, 2025 @08:53PM (#45534517)
PCIe is mostly backwards compatible with PCI, and bridge chips used to be quite common. ISA to PCI is harder, but not unheard of.

"SATA" stands for "serial ATA", and has the same basic command set as the PATA from 1984 - bridge chips were widely used. And it all uses SCSI, which is also what USB Mass Storage Devices use. Or if you're feeling fancy, there's a whole SCSI-to-NVMe translation standard as well.

HDMI is fully compatible with single-land DVI-D, you can find passive adapters for a few bucks.

There's one port you forgot to mention: ethernet! A brand-new 10Gbps NIC will happily talk with an ancient 10Mbps NIC.

It might look different, but the pc world is filled with ancient technology remnants, and you can build some absolutely cursed adapter stacks. If anything, the limiting factor is Windows driver support.

Re:Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It? by Neywiny on Thursday October 09, 2025 @10:21PM (#45534883)
Slight caveat that a lot of Ethernet PHYs > 1G don't go down to 10 Mb, my some don't go to 100 Mb, and some are only the speed they want to be (though luckily that's not very common). There exist 6-speed PHYs (10,100,1000,2500,5000,10000) but that doesn't mean everything will happily talk
Re:Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It? by eptcyka on Friday October 10, 2025 @03:05AM (#45536096)
Python programs do not care about SATA/PCI-E.
Re:Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It? by kibwen on Friday October 10, 2025 @09:50PM (#45545868)
Python programs run on an interpreter, which runs on an OS, which has drivers that run on a given piece of hardware. All of the layers of the stack need to be considered and constantly maintained in order for preservation to work.
Re:Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It? by janc_ on Saturday October 11, 2025 @07:17PM (#45553589)
Some do, most don't. (Don't generalize)
Re:Python 3.14 Is Here. How Fast Is It? by KK7NIL on Friday October 10, 2025 @11:03AM (#45539871)
You're confusing quite a few things together.

The basic peripherals (keyboard and monitor) of today still present the same interface as they did back in the IBM PC era. Everything else is due to massive hardware expansion, not hardware churn.

How often do you update your drivers compare to your typical internet connected app? Software that handles the idiosyncrasies of the hardware (aka drivers) generally has a much longer lifespan than most other software; I don't see how you can reasonably say hardware breaking backwards compatibility is why software keeps changing.