alt Hacker News> But when Word 97 arrived with real-time spelling and grammar checking and Clippy, the 486 couldn’t keep up. You really needed a Pentium or equivalent to do all three at once without noticeable lag as you typed.
In other words, faster hardware was needed because the quality and performance of the software dropped. I was doing spell-checking with WordStar on an CP/M Apple II with zero lag -- and WordStar fit on one side of a 5' floppy.
WordStar originally didn’t have a spell checker. It was an add in product. And even after SpellStar was integrated (a response to the NewStar clone’s built-in spell checker), it was never as-you-type spell checking, which is what we got in Word 97, and what consumed the cycles on a 486.
Word 97 also had as-you-type grammar checking, which wordstar never had. Wordstar did have an add in extra cost grammar checker whose name escapes me at the moment. But again, it was never real time.
Yes, programs have become bloated, but it is worth it to compare apples to apples.
One might argue that real time isn’t necessary, and one might be right. But that’s different from poorly written.