For the love of old tech + rant on all things modern

[trag]

Microsoft forcing me to totally relearn how to use a computer every few years with their increasingly fractured user interface ‘improvements’ has been a great annoyance to me most of my life. I feel like they really peaked with Windows 7 and finally got everything just about perfect. It was beautiful, sleek, stable, fairly user friendly… WTF happened??

I totally agree with this, except, I might like XP better than 7. It's a tough call.

What is this move to do away with clearly labeled menu items and replace everything with squiggles?

And how the F(*(& am I supposed to just magically know what the squiggles mean?

Now, not so much. I get a small sense of dread from my modern Apple products. It feels like I don’t own them. They own me. When I look at new Apple products, the 1984 commercial plays in my mind and I think - how did it come to this?

Yep. And I use Windows at work. Hence, at this point, I'd just rather use a Windows machine. Not gonna try to keep up with Apple's trail of quickly dropped support.

 

[Kai Robinson]

Honestly the thing about tech that bugs me these days isn't so much on the computing side of things. Things like interfaces in cars really irritates the shit out of me. I drive a 23 year old BMW. The controls are simple, marked clearly and placed in a sane way for ease of access to the driver. I get in a modern car, and nearly everything is via some menu driven piece of crap Android interface that's laggy or broken - there's no physical buttons to press for a simple function anymore. What's worse is vehicles like Tesla's etc that insist on some obnoxious touchscreen interface - like i'm supposed to use that while i'm driving? Yes, i want to change the temperature, let me just find a layby, pull over, make a change and set off again. No - i want to reach over without needing to look at the control, so i'm not taking my eyes off the road, press a damn button and have the temperature go up and down.

Things seem to be increasingly designed for people with the attention span of a goldfish, or for the 'look how cool this is' factor, without a hint of actual, real world use factored back in.

 

[Yoda]

The whole thing about touchscreen interfaces in cars is the epitome of the way technology serves itself/design trends and not the user of it. There can be no valid explanation for creating vehicle control systems where the driver has no option but look away from the road in order to operate the vehicle.

Not just that, but these things are actually hopelessly obstructive to any person with sensory or motor control problems, where physical buttons and knobs are far easier to locate and use by touch.

But even when there are actually buttons, there are now so many of them that it can be a major distraction working out where they are and what they're for. One would think that it would be hard to argue the steering wheel should be for a lot more than actually steering the vehicle, but there are now several times the number of controls on just the steering wheel than there were on the entire dashboard of my first car.

The complexity of things is reaching idiotic proportion, which is entirely about toys to play with, not the actual use of the thing itself.

It isn't just getting-old-syndrome, but that is a part of it I guess. However, to me, 'stuff' is about tools to get things done, and it's getting harder and harder to just use almost anything without having to focus a bunch of attention on it first. Whether cars, computers, home appliances, whatever else, manufacturers of hardware, designers of control or operating systems and developers of software seem to have lost track of what users really need, or what actual purpose the product is intended to meet.

Design has become more like a parade of clown cars in a chaotic zigzag progression than a serious business of building resources for users to actually make use of. But as long as it looks impressive, it must be great.

 

[Patrick]

i would be surprised if we get disagreement on car interfaces. Touch screens in cars are pretty bad.

I just want to say I like Apple's new hardware and software. some things I don't like. but in general I like the work they are doing. Really the bits i didn't like was like the 2015-2019 era. with the Butterfly keyboard and the touchbar. But they moved away from both of those things.

The things that really concern me is the LLM / Generative AI stuff. I don't think its going to be able to replace creative work. But it could be a situation where in order to keep up with your peers in productivity you have to use it on the job.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

i would be surprised if we get disagreement on car interfaces. Touch screens in cars are pretty bad.

I just want to say I like Apple's new hardware and software. some things I don't like. but in general I like the work they are doing. Really the bits i didn't like was like the 2015-2019 era. with the Butterfly keyboard and the touchbar. But they moved away from both of those things.

The things that really concern me is the LLM / Generative AI stuff. I don't think its going to be able to replace creative work. But it could be a situation where in order to keep up with your peers in productivity you have to use it on the job.

I have been on and off about buying a new Apple MBP but I cant get past the keyboards. I really dislike their feel and so to drop that kind of money on something I inherently dislike the feel of ... just isnt going to happen. So here I am using old stuff that feels good and I know how to use. If I could stick the kb off a powerbook g4 17" onto a 16" AS MBP, flat icons, lack of upgrade-ability and subscription-centricity aside, Id be very happy but as is, man these things feel so gross and crappy to my fingers. I mean I guess I dodge the Apple tax? lol

Anyways, AI as an enhancement to work most definitely will have the same effect industrialization initially had on the agrarian worker, drastically improving productivity for one worker, their wealth and the prosperity of the employer and in the process completely destroying the economic means as-is of the other. The impact will be no different now and moving forward. Adapt or die. The economy undeniably has adopted AI, so as workers, we either leverage & embrace it to keep our productivity in line with anticipated growth of employer or lose our livelihoods in the process. We've seen automation gobble up skilled labor and replaced with low-wage workers and I expect more of the same to be true with laborer/trades work forces certainly but infecting and growing into degreed workspaces as well. Humanity has giveen zero shits about destroying the economic means of millions of laborers across the globe and that will certainly not change now. Trying to remain flexible and adaptive across multiple disciplines and industries for as long as we can seems to be the primary skill needed to stay employed and out of the breadline.

 

[trag]

Honestly the thing about tech that bugs me these days isn't so much on the computing side of things. Things like interfaces in cars really irritates the shit out of me.

Me too times ten. I drive a 2010 Buick. It might not be what I would have chosen myself, but it was a hand-me-down from my parents, and I'm certainly not going to spend money on a car when I get one free.

But when I look at the interfaces on the new cars -- What were they thinking!!!?!?

I guess the public wants everything to look like a cell phone or something. But as Kai points out, that's terrible, criminal ergonomics for a car.

I can't even find an after market car stereo with more than one knob any more.

 

[3lectr1c]

+1 on cars without buttons. The UIs are usually laggy and just not great to use in general, especially while driving I'd imagine. Glad our car doesn't have any of that.

 

[Paolo B]

Car industry is one of the most conservative ever: requiring huge expenditures and investments, running on meagre margins, it’s totally cost driven.
The touch panel-based UX craziness stemmed from Tesla, who managed to sell impossibly spartan interiors for the epitome of coolness (some sort of new “Swedish minimalism”).
“Get rid of whatever you can get rid of, as it costs money”, it’s their motto. And switchgear is damn expensive, especially if you have to make it from scratch (plus testing etc).

Other OEMs followed suit, transplanting - for the joy of the bean counters - impromptu copycats of the Tesla interiors to otherwise functional, highly rationale cars that got polished generation after generation.

Big fail.
For one, VW went into serious troubles for the totally flawed OS and UX of their recent batch of vehicles.
Other OEMs found a more balanced way to adopt this modern paradigm. But users are punishing them. If I want to buy a Golf, I buy it because it’s a reassuring well-made classic, not a “smartphone on wheels”. If I want a “smartphone on wheels”, I buy a Tesla.

So, buyers are complaining about the user experience, OEMs are listening, but it will take one generation of cars for them to get back to more rationale interiors featuring a minimum amount of switches and dials for the sake of safety and user friendliness (VW just did that for the mid life update of the ID.3).

And yes, BMW used to have the most amazing interiors of them all, designed with sheer driving pleasure in mind (nowadays, unfortunately, very much less so, at least to my opinion.)

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Mild irony, but didn’t BMW come out with the first touch screen UI for radio/climate control etc back in the late 80s? IIRC it was orange and black and all criticisms aside, was a very cool piece of tech for its time.

My wife’s 2020 Atlas has a combo touch screen/dial UI for the radio, so not a bad compromise all in between that and the rest of the climate control which are dials n buttons.

I agree 110% on the 100% TS UI in modern cars. Not intuitive and very distracting when in traffic. The above combo I am pretty happy with when I have to drive my wife’s Vdub.

 

[Ubik]

Mild irony, but didn’t BMW come out with the first touch screen UI for radio/climate control etc back in the late 80s? IIRC it was orange and black and all criticisms aside, was a very cool piece of tech for its time.

My wife’s 2020 Atlas has a combo touch screen/dial UI for the radio, so not a bad compromise all in between that and the rest of the climate control which are dials n buttons.
View attachment 13418 I agree 110% on the 100% TS UI in modern cars. Not intuitive and very distracting when in traffic. The above combo I am pretty happy with when I have to drive my wife’s Vdub.

Agree. My 2017 VW Mk7 GTI has a great UI and does wired Apple Car Play well, Most important car functions are physical buttons, and the touch screen is responsive. Unfortunately VW's newest models have taken a turn for the worse by dropping physical buttons, which was the selling point of VWs - they all had the same physical button layout. There is a big customer backlash and VW is struggling to fix this.

 

[Paolo B]

Bad news on the way…
Fresh from Autocar magazine’s web site.
Mid life update Tesla 3 just got rid of the steering wheel stalks.
Fog lights are gone, too.
Good job, guys, some 50 bucks in production costs spared.
And BMW’s horrific “Neue Klasse” concept interior is yet another copycat of Tesla: a “minimalist cockpit”, with bare minimum physical controls.
Welcome to the future.

 

[Paolo B]

My 2017 VW Mk7 GTI has a great UI and does wired Apple Car Play well, Most important car functions are physical buttons, and the touch screen is responsive.

Agree, my family has one too, and it’s a very fine and well thought interior. Still, put an old person behind the wheel and the judgement will be different. Ea h function should never be more than 3 “clicks” away, but it’s seldom the case. With physical buttons, each function is one action away.

 

[Paolo B]

To my judgement and experience, this is one of BMW’s finest interiors. I’ve driven one for many years and enjoyed every moment. Buttons, knobs, dials, but also digital screens blending seamlessly with the instruments. But maybe it’s just me getting too old.

 

[Volvo242GT]

Something pretty simple. 1981-85 Volvo 240 Turbo cockpit...

 

[Paolo B]

Something pretty simple. 1981-85 Volvo 240 Turbo ****pit...

Another timeless classic. Built like a tank, drives like a tank

 

[Sideburn]

I miss developing (as a job) in CodeWarrior. Damn OSX and Xcode killed it! I just put it on my PowerBook G3 and re-realized how great it was.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

It's a wonderful IDE. Well-thought out, lots of features. By CW Pro 6 or 7 it was so finely honed for great workflow. Everything at your fingertips.

 

[vorg]

Heck yeah! Nothing like having a good ol' particle accelerator firing at your face. I had to purge most of mine due to space limitations though.
Until I get a 3D plasma voxel hologram with haptic feedback I'm feeling thoroughly let down by the lack of high energy physics in my display technology.

Some companies are trying to miniaturize CRT jumbotrons. There is hope for the future! Although micro-LED tech might mean these are already on their way to obsolescence.

 

[Arbystpossum]

Not to necro post, but I think about something quite often, which is human tech development in the last 100 years, and then 100 years before that. Movement was somewhat slow, sometimes the thing you did early in life was the thing you did all of your life. Industrial revolution changed that, but how many changes have occurred similarly after that? With the introduction of computers, then the incorporation of computers into everyones daily life. I can understand the mentality of "Boomer"-types and their avoidance of computers because of how life was for a majority of their life and suddenly there are all these new complicated things to learn. I can also understand the American Amish communities in terms of keeping society a specific and unchanging way for whatever reason you want. Though it's not without its problems, and I'm bias being born in the late 80's, but the time of 1995-2005 was a unique time of analog and digital mix, computers and technology were present but still limited. Technology was advancing at an incredible rate, but older equipment still had its place and was still useful. I'm generalizing and of course I have examples in mind, and I'm sure one could have many strong counter arguments.

The design of things was also very different. I do miss the beige boxes. Fashion always moves forward, but I still miss older design languages. Related to this point is how interconnected the world is. We have international businesses that sell their product, whatever designs they sell are going to be the dominant designs. The most obvious is cell phones, and how they used to have such variety in designs, now they're all black slates that you're going to put a case on anyway. Related to this, also, in local labor. Strangely, thinking about the art in children's books, sourcing local illustrators for the book instead of shooting for the moon and getting one of the best or just better.

I'm sure I could write a book about this kind of thing, provided I took the time to organize the points, but I'll just leave this garbled mess here.

 

[Yoda]

...I can understand the mentality of "Boomer"-types and their avoidance of computers because of how life was for a majority of their life and suddenly there are all these new complicated things to learn....

I'm not sure that you have the mentality of 'boomer-types' quite right, since we were, largely, the generation (or so) that drove adoption of microcomputing, even to the point that many of us played a significant role in development and systems engineering. It is frankly a bit alarming, certainly too simplistic, to think of the boomer generation avoiding computing because of all the new and complex things to learn.

To my mind the issue is a somewhat different one than this, because to some degree I think the reason some of us are 'stuck' in the older generation(s) of technology isn't a resistance to the new, but a belief - or recognition - that where we were at in a previous iteration of the technology was simply better for our needs than it is now, in the sense that then it was less complex and over-developed, thus more finely tuned to what we we were using it for.

The problem as I see it is that many developers and systems engineers today never really saw or were exposed to the IT landscape as it was in the late 20th century, and so don't appreciate what those technologies could do. The present-day dismissive attitude towards early 90's computing, for example, ignores the fact that these machines were core productivity and management tools in businesses large and small at the time and for years after, and are just as capable now as they ever were then. Where today, it is common currency that if it can't 'do the internet' it is useless, many of us actually see this as a benefit.

For example, I can personally see a huge benefit in a portable which can run 24-hours on one set of 4 batteries, is simple and fast to use, has a first class keyboard, and rock-solid basic functions. That it doesn’t need updates, patches, has no end-of-life OS to consider, and actually does ‘just work’, is a huge positive, and the lack of email, messaging and internet is advantageous in a number of ways, not least that there are fewer distractions, almost total data security, and zero risk of malware. I used exactly this computer for years for Information Security project work and technical documentation, and it was perfect where a modern device with modern OS would not have been.

The point being, not that as a boomer I grew up without computing technologies and so have a resistance to it or reluctance for it, but that I saw what I believe to be the best of these technologies, before they ballooned into modern monstrosities which I have to serve rather than have to serve me. And really, I don't think I have ever known someone my age who resisted these technologies, though I have known quite a few who can see the fallibility of reliance on some of the more recent developments or use of them.