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from the perhaps-providing-prompt-prompts-prompts-perceived-performance-primacy dept.
Have you ever had that nagging sensation that your computer was slower than it used to be? Or that your brand new laptop seemed much more sluggish than an old tower PC you once had? Dan Luu, a computer engineer who has previously worked at Google and Microsoft, had the same sensation, so he did what the rest of us would not: He decided to test a whole slew of computational devices ranging from desktops built in 1977 to computers and tablets built this year. And he learned that that nagging sensation was spot on—over the last 30 years, computers have actually gotten slower in one particular way.
Not computationally speaking, of course. Modern computers are capable of complex calculations that would be impossible for the earliest processors of the personal computing age. The Apple IIe, which ended up being the “fastest” desktop/laptop computer Luu tested, is capable of performing just 0.43 million instructions per second (MIPS) with its MOS 6502 processor. The Intel i7-7700k, found in the most powerful computer Luu tested, is capable of over 27,000 MIPS.
But Luu wasn’t testing how fast a computer processes complex data sets. Luu was interested in testing how the responsiveness of computers to human interaction had changed over the last three decades, and in that case, the Apple IIe is significantly faster than any modern computer.
https://gizmodo.com/the-one-way-your-laptop-is-actually-slower-than-a-30-ye-1821608743
(Score: 3, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:56PM (2 children)
Interestingly, my MythTV systems which work flawlessly on 1080 OTA content are both still on old x86 hardware, which I've been able to get away with since they're both on Gentoo (currently running a 4.12.12 kernel). Ironically however, I'll eventually get screwed because of the only proprietary software I depend on...and that's the nVidia driver which I need for my frontend's GT430 card for VDPAU etc...and nVidia is dropping 32 bit support. Wonderful.
So that will eventually force me to 64 bit hardware at least for the frontend sooner than I probably would have done so. The sad irony is that I've yet to find remote control USB IR receiver that isn't a laggy piece of total shit compared to my old serial IR reciever...so odds are, I'll loose functionality with the "upgrade". Shit's just moving backwards for sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @12:12AM (1 child)
You can get a USB-serial converter so you can still use your old IR receiver. Or you can get a cheap AMD video card. The AMD driver is open source, though that's still no guarantee it will work on 32-bit kernels forever.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday January 02 2018, @12:30AM
Actually no. The serial IR code in the kernel is expressly designed to work with a real serial device only. That's always been the case. That's why the usual serial UART needs to be disabled. In my case I just left the ordinary serial support out of the kernel freeing the port for the IR.
I've tried an MCE USB receiver and the lag was unusable. I just received an IguanaWorks receiver but it turned out to be one that requires a separate wired receiver (with a 1/8" phone jack) which I'm waiting to get. I'm hoping that works better, but I've read many accounts that there's nothing out there as reliable as the old homebrew IR receivers for real serial ports.