Rapid advances in hardware, what about software?
So, I’m showering this morning, (already TMI, I know) and I have this dream of the computer of the future. Like any other bona fide nerd, I’ve always drooled over high powered machines, and I couldn’t help thinking about how far technology has advanced in my lifetime. I remember surfing BBS’ with my 9600 bps modem on my speedy Windows 3.1 machine boasting a 16 MHz Intel 386 processor. Yes, I remember the roomy 100 MB hard drive that we never thought we could fill up and the 4 MB of RAM.
Now, a mere decade later, personal computers are starting out with 2 GB of RAM. According to my math, which is decidedly poor, we have entry level machines today with 51,100% more RAM. So, if our entry level machines in the next decade make the same advances, we’re looking at 1 TB of RAM standard and 1 exabyte hard drives. Friends, let’s toast to the future. I’m salivating right now.
My curiosity though is why our brand spankin’ new machines don’t really feel much faster than before. See, my XP Pro machines work great with 512 MB of RAM. Not so with Vista. Now, if we’ve made so many advances in hardware, why can’t we equally increase the efficiency of our software? I have some sneaking suspicion that the leading software company is in cahoots with some of the leading computer manufacturers to coerce the unsuspecting masses into upgrading their PCs.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I gotta reply to this one:
15 years ago I rebooted my computer every day (if not more than once). If my printer driver crashed, so did the rest of the computer.
The last time I rebooted the computer I’m currently typing on was about a week ago, and frankly I didn’t need to then either. As an admin over 75+ computers, I have seen 2 bluescreens in the last 6 months.
15 years ago a virus was something you got from a floppy disk and was written 6 months ago. Hackers only had a few targets and my computer was not one of them
Today my anti-virus software releases new updates several times a day and I have 3 levels of firewalls to keep the hackers out… one of them is part of the OS and is itself using more processing power and memory than I had for my whole computer 15 years ago.
Our operating systems are doing more both because they can and because they have to. I have both a linux box and a mac on my desk (both are currently powered down), and they both have the same requirements as Windows. Yes the linux box CAN run on an old 486 with 8 megs of RAM, but that’s with no GUI, no services, and without running any applications.
Oh yeah, and my installation of Windows 95 took 20% of my 400 meg hard drive, but Vista only takes about 1% of my 400 gig drive.
(ok, I teach a high school computer hardware class and this is one of my lectures, sorry) :)
March 5th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Ok, so you’re right. I was a bit dramatic. You’ve still got to agree that Vista runs slower than XP and that Office 2007 runs slower than 2003 on similarly equipped machines. I know that there are more attacks and more media functions built in that require more RAM, but I’m kind of dreaming out loud of a day when our current hardware is sufficient for new software coming out.
I still believe that Microsoft purposely makes some portions of their products hog memory unnecessarily just so their major clients like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and the like can make more money. But, then again, I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist.
On the blue screen, you’re right - I haven’t seen one in a LONG time. That’s exciting stuff. So, software is advancing just not necessarily getting more efficient. Or, is it?
March 5th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Plus, really… what does Office 2007 do that 2003 doesn’t to require the service of so much more memory?
March 10th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I’ll concede that programmers have gotten a little (or a lot) lazy/sloppy these days. When you had to fit your entire program into 640k RAM you spent a lot of time being REALLY careful about how you used that RAM.
But, have you noticed that 6 years ago your operating system and Office and all of your documents used up 8 gigs on a 20 gig drive, and nowadays they use 12 gigs on a 400 gig drive? (ignoring videos, mp3s and photos of course)
Ok, one last comment, then I’m done (mainly because I really hate it when people get all crazy on comment threads and just go back and forth on useless stuff).
I’ve got Office 07 deployed across the board here at our church, and my absolute favorite feature is “instant preview”. Basically, when you hover over a button that would change the selected text or document, it will temporarily make the change and show you what it would look like if you clicked. Very handy when choosing between fonts or styles or colors or whatnot.
Microsoft probably wanted to add that in 10 years ago, but of course a computer that old would have totally choked on a feature like that. Of course you can turn it off if you want to, but why would you unless your computer doesn’t handle it very well?
Oh but wait, I’ve got to agree with one conspiracy theory that I KNOW is correct. Microsoft DOES make stuff available only to newer OS versions just to sell them. Like DirectX 10 and Windows Defender and many more things.