VOGONS


Reply 40 of 97, by Cuttoon

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Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-25, 23:51:
Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-25, 21:37:

Concerning the continued existence of human civilisation as we know it: Big difference. We could stop buying new high tech clutter right now and we'd have enough to play games until well after the last coal plant has been closed down. I'd probably even feel obliged to recycle most of my heap for all the rare minerals in there - had I any evidence that it won't just end up in some African landfill.

What if a new device comes out that replaces 10x your old gear, at 1/10 of the power draw for the remainder of your life? (not a hypothetical question - this is happening e.g. MiSTer)

Yep, power consumption during usage is a huge issue. But
a) special materials in IT incorporate copious amounts of grey energy. There are numbers. Vaclav Smil mentioned something of "two cellphones equal the steel for a car."
b) on a long enough timeframe, somewhere the graphs will cross. But does that mean your old gear uses too much power or you're having way more screentime than is healthy anyway?
c) while real world IT comes from China, power is local and you have a choice. I'm not using any fossil energy.
(Before some wiseass rushes to correct me: I know it's the same grid. But as far as any choice goes, it's a fact.)

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-25, 23:51:

Or: has anybody really calculated the net environmental comparison of "running an original real 486 for a year's worth of retro gaming" vs "running DOSbox on a Raspberry Pi for that year"?

If you're also using that PI as your daily driver desktop and had it anyway, of course, much to be preferred. It all depends on the actual case. No simple answers.

I like jumpers.

Reply 41 of 97, by Shreddoc

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Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-26, 08:36:
Yep, power consumption during usage is a huge issue. But a) special materials in IT incorporate copious amounts of grey energy. […]
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Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-25, 23:51:
Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-25, 21:37:

Concerning the continued existence of human civilisation as we know it: Big difference. We could stop buying new high tech clutter right now and we'd have enough to play games until well after the last coal plant has been closed down. I'd probably even feel obliged to recycle most of my heap for all the rare minerals in there - had I any evidence that it won't just end up in some African landfill.

What if a new device comes out that replaces 10x your old gear, at 1/10 of the power draw for the remainder of your life? (not a hypothetical question - this is happening e.g. MiSTer)

Yep, power consumption during usage is a huge issue. But
a) special materials in IT incorporate copious amounts of grey energy. There are numbers. Vaclav Smil mentioned something of "two cellphones equal the steel for a car."
b) on a long enough timeframe, somewhere the graphs will cross. But does that mean your old gear uses too much power or you're having way more screentime than is healthy anyway?
c) while real world IT comes from China, power is local and you have a choice. I'm not using any fossil energy.
(Before some wiseass rushes to correct me: I know it's the same grid. But as far as any choice goes, it's a fact.)

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-25, 23:51:

Or: has anybody really calculated the net environmental comparison of "running an original real 486 for a year's worth of retro gaming" vs "running DOSbox on a Raspberry Pi for that year"?

If you're also using that PI as your daily driver desktop and had it anyway, of course, much to be preferred. It all depends on the actual case. No simple answers.

They're all fair points, Cuttoon.

I think also there are major socio-economic factors. To turn anecdotal: my cousin's income is 3x mine, which means he has 10x the spare money I do. And he spends it, as is perfectly normal for his set. The dense $ they earn translates, more often than not, directly to a vastly inflated personal consumption of planetary resources.

To match the (e.g. grey energy which you mention) cost he can generate in one day of luxury purchases, one needs to be a keen team of Amazonian forest choppers!

And that is less about old-vs-new, than it is about simple inequality, and the excess it generates. A familiar old cycle, when we look back at history, but never so poignant, what with Ye Olde Current Population Growth Graph Of Fun Of Doom, and all...

Reply 42 of 97, by Cuttoon

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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:27:
Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-25, 11:31:
Personally, anecdotal: As an Ubuntu user since, IIRC, 8.04, I tend to get rather annoyed by the preachyness of Windows users. I […]
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Personally, anecdotal:
As an Ubuntu user since, IIRC, 8.04, I tend to get rather annoyed by the preachyness of Windows users. I can't even buy a Playboy magazine without dozens of headlines screaming at me things like "the new Windows xx and why it's awesome" "how to optimize Windows beyond a steaming shitpile" or "how do you make your shrink understand your nighmares about that insufficient swap partition".
Can't these people just use their strange bloatware in peace, without constant proselytizing?

I don't think I could reproduce a single unix shell command without mistake right away.
(Maybe 'll' but not sure what is does.)
But since roughly 2007, or since XP SP3 ultimately annoyed the shit out of me, I download a boot CD or thumbdrive, hook up the DSL cable and install a free OS with a modern GUI and that's it.
Browser, E-Mail, Office and multimedia tools, right out of the box. Rock stable, secure, fast and not a single EULA box to check.
Yet to find a random printer that won't work right away or screen with the wrong resolution.

I guess Windows is for nerds who need certain videogames on a machine made for work and communication or who can't do without some strange one-platform tools of their particular circle jerk.

Last time mommy's windows refused to acknoledge the duplex option of an HP laserjet 2xxx (read: THE most common printer on earth) despite 200 MB of dedicated driver package from some convoluted clusterfuck of a website - well, fixing that was a near-death experience. I'm getting to old for that shit.

The Irony

Mate, does satire work differently down under?
I can't blame you for not having read through all the previous statements but I was merely taking a little stab at a common friend who had compared Linux users to vegans. Which would be an apt comparison for some of them if humans only ever started eating meat around 1990. As I made some effort of explaining in that very post, there is no evolutionary evidence that 'paying a fixed amount to copy existing software to make some cunt in redmond even richer on a regular basis' is the natural thing to do.
So, duh, I was being ironic, hence the irony?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:27:

of telling Windows users to use their OS quietly to then turn around and tell us why Linux is better ?

Irony aside, assuming my clearly stated "anecdotal" experience was in any way universal:
Wouldn't that just be a rather logical argument, since Linux clearly IS better? Or does anyone just enjoy navigating a djungle of entropic marketing bullshit and incoherent, lazy patchwork to get a printer working?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:27:

I think perhaps you should take your own advice here, Linux is no different than Windows, both are a means to and end and nothing more, each has its advantages and disadvantages smart users understand this and use each where best suited, crazy users carry on as if the other OS is the devil and somehow the cause of all evils.

They are tools, thats it.

Yep, and democracy and maoism are just two forms of government, so why bother?

While there might not be any intrinsic difference between an OS and a hammer, it's our arbitrary legal framework that sets them apart.
While there is a protection against copying the original "Binford 700 gram Nailmaster", slapping the same logo on and selling it, no one gets prosecuted for making his own hammer on that template for his personal use.
Marginal cost marketing without marginal cost doesn't make sense and it's leading to all sorts of unfavorable distortions as it is.
And there's a difference between doubting an objective reality and claiming that objective reality does not exist.

Commercial bloatware isn't the cause of all evils and I didn't claim that. It's the cause of one very specific evil I made quite some effort to explain but you didn't care to adress.
Linux or certain other open source solutions are not magic and most won't be quite as lean as they could be.
But as it is: Five to ten years offset in hardware requirement is a difference in absolute terms.
And with our economies in general, within the next 50 years or so, five years less of stupid, vertical growth might just be what keeps human civilisation from collapsing - some things are just depressingly simple.

Last edited by Stiletto on 2022-03-26, 22:58. Edited 1 time in total.

I like jumpers.

Reply 43 of 97, by Cuttoon

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Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-26, 09:06:

To match the (e.g. grey energy which you mention) cost he can generate in one day of luxury purchases, one needs to be a keen team of Amazonian forest choppers!

And that is less about old-vs-new, than it is about simple inequality, and the excess it generates. A familiar old cycle, when we look back at history, but never so poignant, what with Ye Olde Current Population Growth Graph Of Fun Of Doom, and all...

One word: True cost economics.

Actually, those are three words. But there are so many ways to spend good money that do not scale 1:1 with use of natural resources or environmental impact. It's just that most of our current policy favors the ones that do because on the macro level, resources are "just there" and creation of wealth scales with mass production.
Discussing smart solutions like "don't just drive a M1A1 tank to get groceries" is not so much about personal responsibility as about showing: We could change policy for the better without anyone having to go without groceries.

I like jumpers.

Reply 44 of 97, by TrashPanda

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Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-26, 09:23:
Mate, does satire work differently down under? I can't blame you for not having read through all the previous statements but I […]
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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:27:
Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-25, 11:31:
Personally, anecdotal: As an Ubuntu user since, IIRC, 8.04, I tend to get rather annoyed by the preachyness of Windows users. I […]
Show full quote

Personally, anecdotal:
As an Ubuntu user since, IIRC, 8.04, I tend to get rather annoyed by the preachyness of Windows users. I can't even buy a Playboy magazine without dozens of headlines screaming at me things like "the new Windows xx and why it's awesome" "how to optimize Windows beyond a steaming shitpile" or "how do you make your shrink understand your nighmares about that insufficient swap partition".
Can't these people just use their strange bloatware in peace, without constant proselytizing?

I don't think I could reproduce a single unix shell command without mistake right away.
(Maybe 'll' but not sure what is does.)
But since roughly 2007, or since XP SP3 ultimately annoyed the shit out of me, I download a boot CD or thumbdrive, hook up the DSL cable and install a free OS with a modern GUI and that's it.
Browser, E-Mail, Office and multimedia tools, right out of the box. Rock stable, secure, fast and not a single EULA box to check.
Yet to find a random printer that won't work right away or screen with the wrong resolution.

I guess Windows is for nerds who need certain videogames on a machine made for work and communication or who can't do without some strange one-platform tools of their particular circle jerk.

Last time mommy's windows refused to acknoledge the duplex option of an HP laserjet 2xxx (read: THE most common printer on earth) despite 200 MB of dedicated driver package from some convoluted clusterfuck of a website - well, fixing that was a near-death experience. I'm getting to old for that shit.

The Irony

Mate, does satire work differently down under?
I can't blame you for not having read through all the previous statements but I was merely taking a little stab at a common friend who had compared Linux users to vegans. Which would be an apt comparison for some of them if humans only ever started eating meat around 1990. As I made some effort of explaining in that very post, there is no evolutionary evidence that 'paying a fixed amount to copy existing software to make some cunt in redmond even richer on a regular basis' is the natural thing to do.
So, duh, I was being ironic, hence the irony?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:27:

of telling Windows users to use their OS quietly to then turn around and tell us why Linux is better ?

Irony aside, assuming my clearly stated "anecdotal" experience was in any way universal:
Wouldn't that just be a rather logical argument, since Linux clearly IS better? Or does anyone just enjoy navigating a djungle of entropic marketing bullshit and incoherent, lazy patchwork to get a printer working?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:27:

I think perhaps you should take your own advice here, Linux is no different than Windows, both are a means to and end and nothing more, each has its advantages and disadvantages smart users understand this and use each where best suited, crazy users carry on as if the other OS is the devil and somehow the cause of all evils.

They are tools, thats it.

Yep, and democracy and maoism are just two forms of government, so why bother?

While there might not be any intrinsic difference between an OS and a hammer, it's our arbitrary legal framework that sets them apart.
While there is a protection against copying the original "Binford 700 gram Nailmaster", slapping the same logo on and selling it, no one gets prosecuted for making his own hammer on that template for his personal use.
Marginal cost marketing without marginal cost doesn't make sense and it's leading to all sorts of unfavorable distortions as it is.
And there's a difference between doubting an objective reality and claiming that objective reality does not exist.

Commercial bloatware isn't the cause of all evils and I didn't claim that. It's the cause of one very specific evil I made quite some effort to explain but you didn't care to adress.
Linux or certain other open source solutions are not magic and most won't be quite as lean as they could be.
But as it is: Five to ten years offset in hardware requirement is a difference in absolute terms.
And with our economies in general, within the next 50 years or so, five years less of stupid, vertical growth might just be what keeps human civilisation from collapsing - some things are just depressingly simple.

I didn't address printers because they are the cause of all evil Linux, Mac, Windows or any other obscure OS, Printers and their OEM drivers are just plain shite and unless you want to return to dot matrix which works without a driver you just have to deal with bullshit printer drivers which if I might add have ZERO to do with the OS itself and more to do with shit printer companies and their equally shit DRM ink systems. Now Linux does faire a little better here but thats mostly due to OEMs not being able to shaft the OS with their drivers but that said I have ran across just as many printer issues under Linux as Windows.

Mac OS is better than both at dealing with printers but thats because Apple has a strangle hold on that OS and how drivers work with it.

Its pretty clear you have issues with Windows and MS as a whole, I get it but 80% of windows issues are not the underlying OS but shit OEM drivers and stupid users.

If you want to get angry at something go get angry at the bullshit printer companies and what they are trying to pull with Ink DRM and subscription Ink services , MS might like money but Printer companies are far worse.

Oh I see you are low on Cyan ink . .well NO PRINTING FOR YOU but if you pay 4.99 a month the printer can order you new ink cartridges before they run out oh did I mention you have to replace all of them at the same time yup we made sure you cant just replace the one thats low.

Oh and dont you even think about buying non brother Ink cartridges they wont work due to our amazing Ink DRM.

MS may have done some really shit things but they never not once stooped to the level the OEM printer companies are on.

Last edited by Stiletto on 2022-03-26, 22:58. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 45 of 97, by Cuttoon

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Grem Five wrote on 2022-03-26, 00:03:

When I 1st read this thread I thought OMG I got a ton to write a post about but I was at work and wasnt going to try to do that on my cell and then when I got home and grabbed a beer I just decided:

luckybob wrote on 2022-03-25, 07:57:
https://www.vogons.org/thumbs/17073_b9d65e7d72e05b1cb7bdb133df49a3ca/297.jpg […]
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297.jpg

(If this was any other forum this thread would be filled with "OK Boomer" comments)

Roughly 87.5 % of all human behaviour and communication can be attributed to general grumpyness and insufficient coping with ones mortality and the overall contigent nature of existence, yes.
But in case there still is an actual problem at hand, that's just one of roughly 87.5 % of lazy, one size fits all copouts people prefer to dealing with that problem.

Thank you for the pithy observation: Yes, there would be a lot of "OK boomer" going on in the average place populated by average brainwashed cosumer drones. Definitely.
It just wouldn't make any sense.
Taking our current quasi-stalinist structures of hardware and software production for granted and TINA is actually very much a boomer problem. As in, e.g. "we need computers in schools and what else is there but Apple or Microsoft and sending your tax money to assholes abroad to hard wire our kids for a lifetime of brand dependency and self-imposed nonage"?

I was on line by 1997 and had a smart phone and tablet PC by 2004 and would still consider myself a tech enthusiast - it's just no fun any more, given the recent state of affairs.
Maybe that's just my age, hard to tell.
I'm only barely still gen X but by mindset, yep - no kids, no responsibilty, no severe existential constraints ahead - I'm probably running out of f*cks to give at an alarming pace 😁

So, I probably would not care at all whether anyone spends his surplus money on a criminally inefficient IT solution or a criminally ineffcient transport solution on his way to the booze monger.

It's merely the recent adverse side effect of our collective clutter habit that I don't quite manage to ignore yet - despite sufficient beer supply.

Like, people getting so fucking scared about their petty little comfort zones that they start voting actual fascists into my parliament.
Or mainstream politics still feeling the need to subsidize concentration camps in China and Russian wars.
OK, the first few hundred of those first few hundred thousand deaths due to climate change per year occuring in my own contry does not really help, either.

So, ageims is fun but, maybe does not explain away just everything, huh?

I like jumpers.

Reply 46 of 97, by hyoenmadan

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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 10:15:

MS may have done some really shit things but they never not once stooped to the level the OEM printer companies are on.

Until they start to require Pluton DRM chip on their supported hardware platforms in order to run Windows and Office. They have started already with TPM requirement on Win11.

Reply 47 of 97, by the3dfxdude

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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:10:

Worse still is software needing newer versions of SSE instructions to run though not actually using the instructions for any real benefit ..like anything based on chromium. (Which at this point is a phenomenal amount of software, even stuff you wouldn't think would use Chromium)

Only way to get the new SSE instructions is to upgrade the CPU which itself usually requires a new Motherboard and Ram.

*thats right Steam I'm looking at you.

So for chromium when they made the latest change to the SSE level (I don't remember which version exactly, version 93?) they made this change through adjusting the clang compiler flag for it. All you have to do is reverse it, and it restores functionality to my 17 year old AMD Athlon 64. I think it goes further back than that, possibly to P2 or MMX level. So pretty much any machine still ticking that people have is fully capable for Chromium, they just ruin it through letting the compiler break compatibility where the optimizing code feels like. I compile with patches to the chromium build options and run under linux to reverse the change.

During the study the google people had to decide to make the change, they had actually proposed raising the SSE requirement even higher at which virtually every machine I still run would not theoretically support it. (Phenom II might not support it??) They decided not to go there, but based on the report, it seems like they really wanted to. Anyway more needless pain is coming for people that have decent machines not much more than a few years old. They'll probably choose to since they'll say everyone is basically running Windows 10/11 and those machines all have a certain level of CPU. I haven't shared the specifics, but the info is right out there if anyone wants to know.

Steam is an odd one obviously. Unfortunately it is closed source so this cannot just be easily reversed. There are a bunch of games that run fine on older hardware, and they make what is essentially a downloader and launcher to require SSE that has no benefit at all in that purpose.

Reply 48 of 97, by Stiletto

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darry wrote on 2022-03-26, 02:32:

Skeletons don't make great computer users .

Tell that to the VOGONS Skeletor meme: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 49 of 97, by darry

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Stiletto wrote on 2022-03-26, 23:00:
darry wrote on 2022-03-26, 02:32:

Skeletons don't make great computer users .

Tell that to the VOGONS Skeletor meme: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Touché .

And I apparently missed all this as well : https://stock.adobe.com/ca/search/images?k=sk … ton+at+computer

Reply 50 of 97, by ThenZero

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darry wrote on 2022-03-26, 02:32:

A couple of Raspberry Pi boards, a few spare monitors and accessories along with some solar panels, dynamos, a few VRMs and some spare polymer capacitors (and other parts) in a storage cabinet/chest that doubles as a Faraday cage should have you mostly covered .

P.S. Don't forget to mirror some repos or you will be SOL when the apocalypse comes . 😉

P.S.2 Plan for food too. Skeletons don't make great computer users .

*takes notes*

Reply 51 of 97, by Kahenraz

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What happens is that there are landmark or "killer apps" that forcefully move technology forward because the old tech just doesn't cut it. This is primarily led by the internet, although somewhat artificially by software technology not being back ported to older operating systems and the expiration of security certificates. These two reasons are why it's almost impossible to browse the web on Windows XP, regardless of how powerful the underlying hardware is.

Another motivator is games, which set a minimum performance rating for hardware. For example, it's difficult to compare hardware using productivity software, but I can measure it very quickly by running Minecraft, as this game is extremely CPU intensive and ubiquitous. When shopping for a new computer then, it's much easier to ask, "can it run Minecraft" than to try and convey some other benchmark.

If you don't need to browse the internet or play Minecraft on your computer then you can go back pretty far. Otherwise your choices are far more limited.

Reply 52 of 97, by bakemono

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the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-03-26, 16:14:

During the study the google people had to decide to make the change, they had actually proposed raising the SSE requirement even higher at which virtually every machine I still run would not theoretically support it. (Phenom II might not support it??) They decided not to go there, but based on the report, it seems like they really wanted to. Anyway more needless pain is coming for people that have decent machines not much more than a few years old. They'll probably choose to since they'll say everyone is basically running Windows 10/11 and those machines all have a certain level of CPU. I haven't shared the specifics, but the info is right out there if anyone wants to know.

Steam is an odd one obviously. Unfortunately it is closed source so this cannot just be easily reversed. There are a bunch of games that run fine on older hardware, and they make what is essentially a downloader and launcher to require SSE that has no benefit at all in that purpose.

I have enough other reasons not to ever use Steam or Chromium, but I did get a game one time that wouldn't run on Phenom II because of some SSE humbug. It bugged the crap out of me for a while until finally I disassembled it and patched it myself. It's lame that I have to spend time fixing things which other people have deliberately sabotaged, but this is the current state of the 'tech' industry. A large proportion of it is simply the Broken Window Fallacy put into common practice.

again another retro game on itch: https://90soft90.itch.io/shmup-salad

Reply 53 of 97, by TrashPanda

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hyoenmadan wrote on 2022-03-26, 14:38:
TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 10:15:

MS may have done some really shit things but they never not once stooped to the level the OEM printer companies are on.

Until they start to require Pluton DRM chip on their supported hardware platforms in order to run Windows and Office. They have started already with TPM requirement on Win11.

Oddly enough you can Install Win11 just fine without TPM, its unsupported by MS but 11 works just fine without TPM so right now its not a "Hard" requirement, this may change with later windows versions but at that point TPM/Pluton will be part and parcel of the Motherboard hardware so you wont be able to not have it.

I dont like forced security hardware that I dont know the inner workings of but you cant not have it anymore, IME/PSP are part of the CPU and fTPM/PTT is quickly becoming standard on CPUs so I dont know what you would suggest to not have it ?

Unless you are willing to use ancient hardware for daily use . .which is quickly becoming impossible due to software requiring newer instruction sets or new security not being present thus putting you at a higher risk from malicious/hijacked websites.

Last edited by TrashPanda on 2022-03-27, 07:31. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 54 of 97, by TrashPanda

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the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-03-26, 16:14:
So for chromium when they made the latest change to the SSE level (I don't remember which version exactly, version 93?) they mad […]
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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-26, 04:10:

Worse still is software needing newer versions of SSE instructions to run though not actually using the instructions for any real benefit ..like anything based on chromium. (Which at this point is a phenomenal amount of software, even stuff you wouldn't think would use Chromium)

Only way to get the new SSE instructions is to upgrade the CPU which itself usually requires a new Motherboard and Ram.

*thats right Steam I'm looking at you.

So for chromium when they made the latest change to the SSE level (I don't remember which version exactly, version 93?) they made this change through adjusting the clang compiler flag for it. All you have to do is reverse it, and it restores functionality to my 17 year old AMD Athlon 64. I think it goes further back than that, possibly to P2 or MMX level. So pretty much any machine still ticking that people have is fully capable for Chromium, they just ruin it through letting the compiler break compatibility where the optimizing code feels like. I compile with patches to the chromium build options and run under linux to reverse the change.

During the study the google people had to decide to make the change, they had actually proposed raising the SSE requirement even higher at which virtually every machine I still run would not theoretically support it. (Phenom II might not support it??) They decided not to go there, but based on the report, it seems like they really wanted to. Anyway more needless pain is coming for people that have decent machines not much more than a few years old. They'll probably choose to since they'll say everyone is basically running Windows 10/11 and those machines all have a certain level of CPU. I haven't shared the specifics, but the info is right out there if anyone wants to know.

Steam is an odd one obviously. Unfortunately it is closed source so this cannot just be easily reversed. There are a bunch of games that run fine on older hardware, and they make what is essentially a downloader and launcher to require SSE that has no benefit at all in that purpose.

The workaround for this I use is a Steam Emulator for my older machines and simply download the game on my Gaming PC and move it across to the older machine. It works fine so far and means I dont have to use a hack workaround to get steam working on XP/Vista and possibly run the risk of exposing my account.

I know some people use the internet on their 9x,XP,Vista boxes but I never saw the need to expose older machines to the internet with their outdated security.

Reply 55 of 97, by 386SX

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I suppose everything is already been said above the subject. My only thought would be that software and hardware change together but what doesn't change from a concept point of view is what the average consumer use the hw for and it's mostly the same since decades. Things improved a lot I suppose on games graphic and complexity but at the end I don't see how much modern "any device" concepts are different from what they were needed for decades ago.
I usually make the TV example when the 70's TV worked easily in the late 90's using the same analog free air signal even on a B&W CRT curved display. The "progress" might be welcome as long as it isn't the only way to actually do the same task. If a TV lasted really decades it could have been even expensive but that cost was largely compensated over the time. Nowdays how much the same device last before a capacitor or a mosfet or some smd component on the power internal AC/DC board stop working making the whole TV "broken"? Few years maybe. It can be repaired? Maybe.. depending on the brand, model, sometimes parts are impossible to find. Or maybe Smart TV having old kernel old SoC old API old browsers smartphone like subsystems that will get obsolete much before than the TV panel or the usual internal boards.

Usually I ask myself if every things that nowdays are used daily from the average consumers would not be possible with 2000 sw/hw technology and beside any nostalgic view of those operating systems, sw, hw, they indeed offered the same things in a simpler lighter way. Let's take a generic homepage where a user might be interested to just read a long text article. Is it possible nowdays gigabytes of ram and multi core cpu and opengl wrapped to Directx or OpenglES acceleration are needed to just read a text article inside layers over layers of javascripts, ads, contracts, agreements, whatever.

Reply 56 of 97, by TrashPanda

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you can blame planned obsolescence for all of this, light bulbs at one point lasted for decades and TVs could last just as long but having things last doesnt make money and neither does old tech living beyond its useful life. So the major corporations made sure that failure occurs usually right after the warranty ends =/

I think that useful advancements are still being made and that trying to use old hardware just because it could possibly still do that job defeats the purpose of moving forwards, can my core2quad still do many of the things my modern PC can do .. sure but its hardly a great experience even when getting rid of the web junk(Adds, Java script, ETC). Just like my CRT tv can still play movies just fine via VHS, its still a horrible experience and the quality is awful in comparison to my 75" 4k TV, I guess I have become spoiled by the advancements in encoding and compression being able to bring high quality content right to my living room.

So while I agree with you sentiments about obsolescence being too prevalent today I still dont want to go back, I like my newer faster PC and my 4k TV and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way either.

Reply 57 of 97, by 386SX

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I agree that if we compare a common 80's CRT TV to a modern 4K TV panel there's not even sense to compare them but at the end they both does the same task from a concept point of view. I'm not saying that the progress that arrived to a 4K TV OLED panel isn't welcome, of course they are awesome from any technical point of view but at the end the average consumer I suppose will not even configure that TV for the native source resolution. Maybe using some old 576i 1080i signal on it and just saying "..colors are saturated and the image is brighter than ever.." but do they use that panel for something that panel would deserve to be used? Are the average consumer real cinema fans with example hundreds original genuine supports they will benefit that panel from? Or even are disc based movies still a common option instead of the "on demand" (equal to not phisically own anything of course if that's progress) TV modern services?

Then I undestand even in the 90's PC got upgraded soon, but they were the real "future" in those days and I understand as we all probably felt just upgrading them beside the need, was interesting. But I also remember having my 80386SX based cheap second hand machine from 1994/5 to late 1998/99 and I didn't even care about tech upgrades in those times. I jumped from MSDOS/Win 3.1 to a Win 98 K6-2 machine but without a real need just like nowdays I see people buy entire new TV just cause the DVB-T2 whatever switch when a 20$/E decoder would just do the same.

Reply 58 of 97, by Kahenraz

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bakemono wrote on 2022-03-27, 04:48:

I have enough other reasons not to ever use Steam or Chromium, but I did get a game one time that wouldn't run on Phenom II because of some SSE humbug. It bugged the crap out of me for a while until finally I disassembled it and patched it myself. It's lame that I have to spend time fixing things which other people have deliberately sabotaged, but this is the current state of the 'tech' industry. A large proportion of it is simply the Broken Window Fallacy put into common practice.

Can you explain more about this? Did it just test for SSE and not use it anywhere? How did you patch something like this out?

I've also encountered applications which refuse to run without SSE, and I would like to know more.

Reply 59 of 97, by bakemono

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Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-27, 11:40:

Can you explain more about this? Did it just test for SSE and not use it anywhere? How did you patch something like this out?

I've also encountered applications which refuse to run without SSE, and I would like to know more.

The main program didn't test for CPU support, it just crashed with an illegal instruction exception. Phenom II supports SSE3, but there were SSSE3, SSE4.1, and SSE4.2 instructions inside. I rewrote a few routines to not use them anymore. As an example, one of the offenders was DPPS:

        movaps xmm2,xmm3
dpps xmm2,xmm3,0x7f

I replaced it with a subroutine call that executed this instead:

        movaps oword [rsp-0x10],xmm3
mov dword [rsp-0x04],0
movaps xmm2,oword [rsp-0x10]
mulps xmm2,xmm3
haddps xmm2,xmm2
haddps xmm2,xmm2

Tools used: CFF explorer, NASM, x64dbg, and a hex editor

BTW, there is also a program called "Intel Software Development Emulator" which can emulate all of the different instruction sets, but it has a big performance hit.

again another retro game on itch: https://90soft90.itch.io/shmup-salad