←back to thread

Windows NT on 600MHz machine opens apps instantly. What happened?

(twitter.com)
752 points dceddia | 1 comments | 23 Jun 23 14:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source
Show context
NovemberWhiskey ◴[23 Jun 23 14:42 UTC] No.36447461[source]▶
Some additional things to note:

Windows NT 3.51 minimum hardware requirements were a i386 or i486 processor at 25MHz or better and 12MB of RAM for the workstation version. So the 600MHz machine with 128MB RAM is exceeding the minimum requirement by (conservatively) 24x in CPU speed and 10x in RAM, along with all the architectural improvements from going from the i386 to what's presumably a Pentium III-class machine.

If that's actually a Surface Go 2 running Windows 11 - well, it doesn't have a quad-core i5 as the tweet claims - the Surface Go 2 came with a Pentium Gold or a Core m3; both with only two cores and of those is an ultra-low power variant.

As such, that exactly meets the minimum CPU specification for Windows 11 and only doubles the minimum 4GB RAM requirement.

I'm not trying to apologize for the difference here, but it's not an entirely like-for-like comparison.

replies(15): >>36447608 #>>36447610 #>>36447680 #>>36447745 #>>36447813 #>>36447953 #>>36448077 #>>36448345 #>>36448687 #>>36448693 #>>36449563 #>>36449787 #>>36450832 #>>36452031 #>>36456701 #
Solvency ◴[23 Jun 23 15:03 UTC] No.36447813[source]▶
Why is Win11 so slow and unoptimized that it needs such crazy hardware.
replies(1): >>36448008 #
JohnFen ◴[23 Jun 23 15:16 UTC] No.36448008[source]▶
I don't think it's unoptimized as much as it's extremely bloated.
replies(3): >>36448358 #>>36449196 #>>36450590 #
nullindividual ◴[23 Jun 23 18:32 UTC] No.36450590[source]▶
The term bloat (as it applies to software) is rooted in gamer-think that has no basis in reality and sends a strong signal of lack of understanding. It's reminiscent of the days of 'BlackViper' and disabling Windows Services -- again, another gamer lack of knowledge issue.
replies(2): >>36450947 #>>36451873 #
1. JohnFen ◴[23 Jun 23 20:34 UTC] No.36451873[source]▶
I'm no gamer, and "bloat" has been a term used in the industry from well before "gamers" (in the sense used today) existed. It's been a term of art for over 30 years.

It also describes a very real thing.

While there are a lot of things that everyone would agree counts as "bloat", there are also areas of disagreement in the form of "one person's bloat is another's essential feature".