Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He\u2019s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he\u2019s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-20/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Jowi Morales Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
Sam Hobbs 40 years ago I was amazed when I was told my employer had a PC with 16 MB (not GB) of memory. Back then mainframes were the powerful systems that big companies used and none of them had 16 MB of main memory, none that I knew of. And the mainframe systems could support multiple users (using VM, CICS, TSO and other utilities) using dumb terminals. As for checking if another instance of the app is already running and activating it if there’s already one, if an application were to to send arguments to another instance then that would be much the same as checking to ensure that the other instance is working. I might misunderstand load frequently used strings into globals but that sounds like something that the C compiler and runtime do normally. As for only loading functionalities when needed, that sounds like the LoadLibrary function for DLLs. If so then that was not as unusual as the article indicates. Reply
rooted I really like Dave and from what I've seen of him he's a good developer but man let it go, so he wrote task manager. It's not like it was a unique application. Top is older, faster, and small. Reply
Caltor Admin said: Dave Plummer used several clever techniques to ensure that Windows Task Manager will always run while cutting the performance hit on your hardware when when it's opened. Veteran Microsoft engineer says original Task Manager was only 80KB so it could run smoothly on 90s computers — original utility used a smart techn… : Read more I miss the days when developers knew how to write software Reply
gnyff Caltor said: I miss the days when developers knew how to write software Me too! Without any real insight (!) I blame both object oriented programming, lack of hardware insight and "don't care about performance" attitude. My quick fix for the developers (beside education) would be: 1) No software developer should (only) be using bleeding edge hardware! 2) If at all possible, they should be forced to use their own software – and so should their family/friends… (This would also make some of the UX problems disappear rather quickly! It's typically faster "making it right" than supporting multiple generations of friends and family 😉 A special shout-out to ACDSee that over the years perfected the bad programming to a degree that they've managed to seriously slow down the performance and start-up times of their (once great!) viewer software ("Photo Studio") to a degree that not even fast NVMe SSDs, excessive RAM amounts and multi-Ghz multi-core CPUs can stop it from beeing slooooooooooow! 😉 Reply
mitch074 gnyff said: Me too! Without any real insight (!) I blame both object oriented programming, lack of hardware insight and "don't care about performance" attitude. My quick fix for the developers (beside education) would be: 1) No software developer should (only) be using bleeding edge hardware! 2) If at all possible, they should be forced to use their own software – and so should their family/friends… (This would also make some of the UX problems disappear rather quickly! It's typically faster "making it right" than supporting multiple generations of friends and family 😉 A special shout-out to ACDSee that over the years perfected the bad programming to a degree that they've managed to seriously slow down the performance and start-up times of their (once great!) viewer software ("Photo Studio") to a degree that not even fast NVMe SSDs, excessive RAM amounts and multi-Ghz multi-core CPUs can stop it from beeing slooooooooooow! 😉 "if it crashes a 1 GHz dual core with 1 Gb of RAM available, no 3D acceleration and a network with random 4 seconds of latency and 6 KBps network access, then something is very wrong". Why so little ? Because that's an older entry level smartphone that's still in use today, and while it's very slow, NOTHING should crash on it. Reply
Darkbreed Sam Hobbs said: 40 years ago I was amazed when I was told my employer had a PC with 16 MB (not GB) of memory. Back then mainframes were the powerful systems that big companies used and none of them had 16 MB of main memory, none that I knew of. And the mainframe systems could support multiple users (using VM, CICS, TSO and other utilities) using dumb terminals. As for checking if another instance of the app is already running and activating it if there’s already one, if an application were to to send arguments to another instance then that would be much the same as checking to ensure that the other instance is working. I might misunderstand load frequently used strings into globals but that sounds like something that the C compiler and runtime do normally. As for only loading functionalities when needed, that sounds like the LoadLibrary function for DLLs. If so then that was not as unusual as the article indicates. I can’t speak for him but it sounds like he is saying that developers over the past decade or few create such poorly written code that they make these super computers we carry around crawl. Why because they don’t know how to program, they know how to make calls to runtimes or other tools usually by dragging boxes around the screen and setting parameters. That is not programming and they seem to just assume it will work because it worked on their fancy development system so they test nothing. Been in IT for 50 years, most of it management and I have had to totally rewrite several programs because no one could make sense of the undocumented cloud mess that was left. Also this article is about PCs not mainframes 🤷🏾♂️but good whatabout, not really. Another tragic sign of our times. Maybe it’s time to stop letting things go, stop simply doing what they are told verbatim and idk, think! 🤔 imma say it. Babysitting these weak minded, fragile, grown ass children was exhausting. Anyway, I will be dead soon and all of this will be in Chinese sooner than later I think. So disregard everything I said and go back to your nitpicking, misdirecting ways. And Dave, you did a most excellent job my dude. Reply
usertests gnyff said: 1) No software developer should (only) be using bleeding edge hardware! Everyone should be forced to target the Core i5-6400T. Or maybe Atom x5-Z8300 as a hard mode. Reply
sftwn Friendly heads-up for anyone reading: Dave has real Microsoft history, but his storytelling tends to get embellished. Worth noting that after leaving Microsoft he ran SoftwareOnline.com, which settled with the Washington State Attorney General in 2006. He and the company admitted to violations of the state Consumer Protection Act, including false 'your computer is at risk' claims to sell products like InternetShield and Registry Cleaner, plus deceptive billing. The WA AG's press release is still online if you want to read it directly. Not trying to dunk on the guy, just suggesting people verify his claims rather than take them at face value. Reply
ArcadianR What do you mean by 80 Kelvin bytes ? Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/veteran-microsoft-engineer-says-original-task-manager-was-only-80kb-so-it-could-run-smoothly-on-90s-computers-original-utility-used-a-smart-technique-to-determine-whether-it-was-the-only-running-instance#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Original Apollo 11 code open-sourced by NASA — original Command Module and Lunar Module code repos are now public domain resources
- South Korea’s telecom giants surprise 7 million users with unlimited, universal internet — net access declared a 'basic telecommunications right,' 400 Kbps data
- FAA courts gamers to become air traffic controllers — boasts $155k average annual salary after three years as the agency prepares for 8,000 applicants
- [Daily Due Diligence] NVDA NVDA
- Silverstone IceMyst Pro 360 Pro Review: Designed for RAM overclocking
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.