That's my point, the software was getting bloated at least as fast as the CPUs were getting faster, so you had to upgrade to a new CPU every few years to run the latest software. With SSDs, there was a huge overlap in CPU speeds that may or may not have an SSD, so upgrading to one meant a huge performance boost, within the same set of runnable software.

Also, going from Sim City to Sim City 2000 was pre-bloat. Over the course of five years, the new version was significantly better than the original, but they both target the same 486 processor generation, which was brand new when the original SimCity was released, but rather old by the time SimCity 2000 was released. Another five years later, Sim City 3000 added minimal functionality, but required not just a Pentium processor, but a fast one.

I guess what I'm getting at is that a faster CPU means programs released after it will run better, but faster storage means that all programs, old and new, will run better.

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steve1977 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> That's my point, the software was getting bloated at least as fast as the CPUs were getting faster

I think there's a difference between bloat and actually useful features or performance.

For example, I started making music with computers in the early 90s. They were only powerful enough to control external equipment like synthesizers.

Nowadays, I can do everything I could do with all that equipment on an iPad! I would not call that bloat.

On the other hand, comparing MS Teams to say ICQ, yeah, a lot of that is bloat.

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myself248 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> in the early 90s. They were only powerful enough to control external equipment like synthesizers.

Tell that to ScreamTracker!

	▲	matheusmoreira 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		In case anyone's wondering: https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw
	▲	prmoustache 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Screamtracker was sampling. Great for the days and much more accesible for the teenager I was than buying and controlling synths but that was not exactly same. More a competition to the early akai MPCs. And we were mostly ripping those samples from records on cassettes and CDs, or other mods.
	▲	steve1977 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Well now that you mention that, my very first steps actually were with Soundmonitor on a C64, one of the OG trackers probably (even though not called tracker yet IIRC). I kind of forgot about that, as that was still very amateurish (I mean what I made with it, not the software). https://www.c64-wiki.de/images/f/f1/rockmon3.png Or also at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roBkg-iPrbw&t=400s in the video already linked below. And yes, I had to type in that listing.

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jstanley 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There is definitely bloat. A few months ago I was messing about with making a QWERTY piano in a web page, and it was utterly unplayable due to the bloat-induced latency in between the fingers and the ears.