Comments on: 1984 vs. 2007

By: DB

DB — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:59:56 +0000

Hahaha – the calculator comparison is the first thing that came to my mind too. My TI-89 & HP-49 boot virtually instantly & probably can outperform the mac too

By: steve

steve — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:38:24 +0000

What NK said. There’s more to it than boot times.
Computers in 2007 can do way more than those old macs (I know as I used one in 1984 – yes I’m old ;o) ). Also Win7 is a quick-booter on my ddr3 hardware and Vista can be made to startup in ~30 seconds with (quite) a bit of tuning.

By: NK

NK — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:15:26 +0000

My calculator boots up in less than a second. Such comparisons are simply not valid.

The good news is, that finally, the world noticed that nobody needs a quad core to read their e-mails and people are building relatively(!) slow netbooks that save you money instead of giving you performance you’ll never need.

By: John Bohlke

John Bohlke — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:31:30 +0000

The only real limitation with both pre-OSX and win9x operating systems is that their memory systems were a bit of a problem. With pre-OSX, assuming my memory is correctly, there was no memory protection, so one application going sour could take down the whole system. With 9x, there was always the problem of low memory and extended memory rearing their heads from the dos days. My boot into a gui is about as fast as the floppy mac and I can do a lot more on my computer than the mac can do. Although that may be because I am running a customized install of Ubuntu Lucid built from the cli install up.

By: bpalone

bpalone — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 03:59:12 +0000

I agree with you on the newer isn’t necessarily better. I just recently put Windoze 98se back on a couple of laptops. After seeing the boot and shutdown times, I really question if we have been advancing. All with less processor power and less memory. The Windoze software I need was written for 9x, so no losses there. I have come to prefer the penguin, but need the Windoze apps. It is only an OS, so I guess… what the hey.

My only concern with older hardware, is will it lay down on you when you are really counting on it? I guess, for what one can save in hardware costs, you pack two or more with you when going out on the road.

As you stated, give the old hardware a chance. It will usually more than do the job.

By: mulenmar

mulenmar — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:45:03 +0000

That’s nothing, the Tandy 102 booted instantly and ran on AA batteries.

Hope you don’t mind me linking one of my own articles — it looks *slightly* better than the cyan-background original. . . http://mulenmar.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/chucks-tandy-102-a-retro-case-modding-experience/

By: Hund

Hund — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:45:14 +0000

Thanks dude.

By: K.Mandla

K.Mandla — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:42:22 +0000

One second please: Try this.

By: Hund

Hund — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:39:18 +0000

A link to the video would be nice. I dont use any Flash player and cannot find the link.