On 8/3/2015 9:13 AM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 18:47:23 -0700, Don Y wrote:

On 8/2/2015 5:46 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 11:18:17 -0700, Don Y wrote:

On 8/2/2015 9:16 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:

So, the trick is finding the right amount of "wait" -- too little and
you can't get started on something else; too much and you risk the
task taking too long for your schedule, etc.

I got a new PC on Friday, and I'm going through the awful process of
installing all my existing apps and settings and projects and desktop
stuff. Old HP XP, new monster Win7 Dell with 4x the ram, 30x the disk,
gobs of horsepower. Such a trauma is worth it every 3 years or so,
certainly not much more often.

For a "trivial (windows) machine" (e.g., something that just does word
processing, web browsing, email, etc.) it usually takes me the better
part of three days to get a new machine set up and configured. Rarely
do you just reinstall all the same (old) apps: "Hmmm.... should I
upgrade Firefox? And, what about the tool that I use to view ISO's?
And what's the latest set of Adobe Reader bugs? ..."

My *work* machines take *weeks* to set up! Invariably, something
that used to work doesn't any longer. So, time spent (wasted)
researching the "why" behind it. Then, deciding if I should
"live without" that thing -- or, *risk* upgrading it and hope
it doesn't break anything else in the process...

I firmly believe in living with a known set of problems and
capabilities instead of seeking out a whole new set! Most of
the time, the machine is sitting in a tight loop waiting for
me to decide which *key* I'm going to press...

I sure as hell don't need to install "updates" every week and
wonder what won't work thereafter -- and *when* I will
discover the problem! (most updates are security related;
keep machine off the internet and all those problems go away!)

In the 80's, I had a pair of 25MHz 386's. It would take a full 24 hours
to render some of my 3D CAD models. I'd turn off the monitor (save
power) and put a note on the keyboard: "Do not turn off" (lest I
forget in a moment of distraction). Then, move to the other machine
and keep working on mode models, or a schematic, or a layout, or some
software, or assembling a prototype, or ordering components, or office
supplies, etc. Always *something* that could be done in the time waiting
(without it feeling like you're "waiting")

I occasionally run a Spice sim on the old 5-year-old HP that take many
minutes per run, so design iterations are slow. That's about the
slowest thing I do, and most circuit sims take a second or two. I can
spin a SolidWorks 3D model essentially instantly. Doing a design rules

Spinning a model is simple. Photorealistically *rendering* it from
a wireframe eats cycles. (I have models of things where you can actually
see the detail of the "legs" of components/DIPs in the final model)

The SolidWorks viewer shows all the surfaces nicely rendered and
colored, and does sections so I can see inside things. Things spin
about as fast as you could spin the real thing in your hand, on my old
HP. I don't run the full SolidWorks, just the viewer.

Yes, I understand. Its a different thing, entirely, to do full ray tracing,
light sources, etc. I.e., I build models that I can "take photos of"
and not know that there was no "camera" involved!

This spins around with no visible delay:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ics/SESM_1.jpg

I couldn't spin the real thing as fast: it's big and heavy!

check on a big PC board might take 10 seconds, so I don't often need
more compute power. Webbing is connection speed limited.

Why does Microsoft keep changing the way Windows works, for no
apparent reason? Most annoying.

Why "new coke"? Why "new and improved" ANYTHING? Esp when the
"improvement" rarely *is*!

If Windows Y was the same as Windows X, who would buy Y?

I would, if it were actually better. Scrambling the UI doesn't make it
better, it just makes it annoying.

Exactly. But users only *see* the UI. Joe Average User couldn't describe
Windows (any version) in terms other than "a graphical user interface
with lots of WINDOWS"

What I found most amusing is reading the numerous papers MSweenies
publish touting the rationale behind all of their decisions -- esp
user interface decisions! Then, reading the counterparts to those
papers at the NEXT release... wherein they have an entirely different
rationale for an entirely different user interface dogma! :-/

Windows 10 looks to be yet another disorganized Apple clone, of OS-X
this time. X=10, get it? Steve Jobs was Microsoft's best architect.

OS-X was derived from BSD.