Comment by lstodd
9 hours ago
You, and sibling comment author just never experienced the truly responsive ui.
It is one where reaction is under a single frame from action. EDIT: and frame is 1/60s, that is 16.(6)ms. I feel bad feeling I have to mention this basic fact.
This was possible on 1980s hardware. I witnessed that, I used that. Why is it not possible now?
I've used 1980s hardware. In the 80s. And used UNIX and HP/Sun/SGI/etc hardware since the 90s. Not only it was no "truly responsive", nothing opened in a "single frame" (talking about X Windows). Took way longer then 1-2 seconds to open a browser on a blank page for example, and for many programs you saw them slowly drawing.
And I did. And it did. Like, Amiga, even 500 models.
I do not doubt X was horrible from that pov. I remember R5. This is not that I meant.
edit: there were no web browsers back then. the effin "folder browser" opens slower on my xfce4 than the same in an a1200 emulator in a window next to it. this is sad.