alt Hacker NewsI loved (past tense) the computer.
Many of us here can wax nostalgic on our first memories of a computer in our home. And when we look at the current slab now in front of us with a little less wonder, it's easy to dismiss this as us having grown up with the machines, having become older, perhaps even a little jaded. That spark is gone?
It's also possible though that the machines now just aren't the same as the ones we grew up with.
Personally, I remember beginning to dislike computers a little when I was suddenly tasked with remembering passwords. At first it was simply to log into my machine (didn't need to do that on Mac System 6.0). Then when the internet came along, suddenly it became something of a chore using the machine…
After working 25+ years at Apple, when I finally retired, people have asked me since if I miss working at Apple. I have to tell them "no and yes". I don't miss working at Apple in the 2010's or the 2020's (when I finally retired). I do however miss working at Apple in the 90's, when I began. It was a very different time to be working at Apple. I miss it and have been missing it for several decades now.
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> suddenly it became something of a chore using the machine…
That really rings true. I can't believe how frustrating it is to get to a place where I can actually focus and do some work.
1. log into my computer with a pincode
2. log into jira, gitlab, confluence with sso (no automatic sign on)
3. ssh into dev containers with key that requires a password
4. open vscode, again ssh into dev containers with a password protected key
5. Close all the popups from IT (usually get 3-5 a day) in the notification area
Heaven help me if IT decided to force an update (I timed one to be 53 minutes). Some days I feel like a custodian instead of an engineer.
I know it's very much a first world problem, but it's shocking how many barriers exist to get any work done in US corporate world. Startups I've worked at didn't have this problem - just get a macbook and here's your gsuite user/pass.
What a story. I never had a chance to play with System 6.0, my first one was Mac OSX Maverick...before DOS/W95-98/XP and Debian/Ubuntu...what was it like?
Back then the whole system was designed to do stuff for us. Now, so much of it is designed to work against us. Monstrous towers of complexity for the sole purpose of stopping you getting a high definition output without copy protection, or download a permanent copy of a video you are watching, or learning how your video card works without a million dollars and an NDA. And there was so much less of it. There's huge swathes of unexecuted code just for rendering text backwards in case I wake up Arabic tomorrow, etc.