Are modern computers more or less reliable than 80s to early 90s computers?

Are modern computers more or less reliable than 80s to early 90s computers?

hardware and operating systems are more reliable
application software is less reliable

Components are more power efficient than ever, so you can do much more while putting much less strain on your processors. Also, SSDs are commonplace and aren't prone to mechanical failure.

can't wait for the hipsters and grandpas saying that computers were better back then.

People these days will never know the joy of editing CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT in order to gain that last 5KB of conventional memory needed in order to run Ultima VI

Probably about the same.
Theres always been tiers of hardware and software, an old E-Machine is kinda like the low end acer of today
Hardware was a bit simpler if anything, less stuff to fail.

This

Also mscdex, soundblaster and mouse.com

>hardware and operating systems are more reliable
>system
>more reliable
heard of windows 10?

Did you ever use Windows 95 or even 3.1?

Obviously they haven't.

Much much more reliable. No comparison.

from an engineering standpoint, whenever you shrink a die or use less material in manufacture, it becomes less reliable

only 25% of my 486-class machines have ever died on me

nearly 100% of all my pentium4 or greater machines die every other year or so

>whenever you shrink a die or use less material in manufacture, it becomes less reliable
Can you elaborate? Not saying you're wrong just want to see why that would be so

had 95 and 98 it wasn't perfect, but still more stable

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Lol, you're obviously too young to have any clue of what you're saying.

Windows 95 and 98 were unstable garbage. Popular yes, stable no. Stability on windows started with NT and then peaked at 2000, and all subsequent Windows releases, even desktop ones, still use the NT core in one way or another.

because materials break down all the time. think of it as corrosion of a stone to make it smooth. it's more to do with silicon hole migration in electronics, but this is more of a "statistically observed" thing in engineering where most people don't realize electronics aren't these indestructible bricks of silicon.

like if you loaded up Pro/Engineer and did a basic stress test to see what parts will die out faster, you'll quickly see that the ones that are bigger have more surface area to mitigate things like strain/torque/thermal-wear and that all turns into a matter of size

Yeah but modern hardware typically draws less power too, shouldn't that matter as well?

It's basically electron damage that does this in the long term or am I missing something?

Your CPUs die every year? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Components are generally higher quality for every price bracket, but operational tolerances are much tighter and things are almost an order of magnitude more complicated/component dense.

monitors were!

>low refresh rates, headache-inducing blinking everywhere
>awfully inefficient
>bombards you with high energy radiation
>placing high powered speakers next to it will damage it permanently
>needs screensavers to prevent image burn
>takes up all your desk space and throws out your back when you carry it up the stairs
Yeah I really wonder why everyone uses LCDs these days

Just admit it was your dad's computer and you were too young to remember anything he was doing on it.

Look up quantum tunneling, electron migration.

Also CPUs use the same total power as they ever did (since about 2001). The limitation is surface area for heat dissipation and amp capacity of a trace or internal wire. Modern components have to push higher and higher amps though lower voltages, but the total watts (power over time) stays the same and thus heat density rises (making electron migration worse)

I have a 31 year old laptop that still works, kek

the 486 and some pentiums didn't even need CPU fans, they used such low wattage

it's not electron 'damage' so much as it is silicon displacing actual holes in space/time, which, over time, will collect around the pins themselves and prevent electricity from entering at all. however most of the actual damage occurs with faulty voltage regulator circuits, and then become a matter of more voltage regulation = more reliable, but only if you use less parts, so more surface area.

it's a conundrum

Windows 95&98 used to crash almost all time. Ejecting a floppy while something is still reading it? Prepare for a system crash. Also ps2 keyboards that could be plugged only with computer turned off, moving the keyboard and disturbing the signal would force you to reboot.
XP was neat in a way that it took me awhile till it crashed for a first time.

Also computers used LESS power most of the time. It wasn't till duo and quad CPUs that computers became power hungry heaters.

Tbh I don't remember last win7 crash. On the other hand, win10 keeps crashing every second day.

Also don't forget always missing HDD space and floppy discs that were enough for 5 doc files.

>2000
>stable

Modern systems are easier to work on (hardware/software) but aren't quite as reliable (more points of failure and more abstract layers).

The hardware in old systems were overengineered as fuck which is why they are so dang reliable.

...

Applications are getting big enough to bump up against defect density limitations of C/C++. That's why memory safe languages that compile to native code are appearing. Go and Rust are a remarkable first step in this direction even if they aren't quite there with UI toolkit bindings for desktop applications and support for other architectures is inferior to GCC for now.

Spent my formative years on 98, then ME, then 2000, and 2000 was a fucking rock.

For one, you could actually leave the damn thing on for days at a time instead of memory leaks always reducing your available RAM to zero after a few hours, even when nothing was actually running

>nearly 100% of all my pentium4 or greater machines die every other year or so
Stop being a retard

It's more reliable than Windows 9X.
Just more of a bloated, annoying clusterfuck botnet.

It's a reliable botnet.

are you writing about crt monitors from the 70s/80s?

>manual editing
just use MemMaker dude

>Old mice and keyboards still work
>New ones break after a year or so
Old computers are best computers.

Only retards used Windows.

>too much fat
Only a problem when you're an american XDDDDD get it??

Amiga 500 still works new toshiba laptop died after 2 years

my personal experience:
>win 98
couldn't reach more than about 1d of up-time with heavyish use, it either crashed or memory leaks ate up all the ram. viruses out the ass if you're not careful.
>xp
a few days up-time with heavy use. still plenty of security issues.
>win 7
if you turn off pointless shit: wireless drivers crap-out after 10-15days of up-time (power went out when i was installing them the first time around - too lazy to clean install them,) beyond that it can run for about a month before it goes to shit. run real-time av out of habit never does shit, as long as you've got noscript and half a brain.

as far as hardware goes: had one gpu(8800gt) and one wnic die on me, all the other shit i bought over that past 20years still works.

SSDs die without a warning and have a short lifespan.

>low refresh rates, headache-inducing blinking everywhere
Then you lower the resolution and increase the refresh rate. I never went below 85hz.

The wonderful thing about the Amiga is that it's got enough resolution to do a proper terminal emulator... which means you can keep a headless Linux/BSD/Unix box around for most of your "real computing" and still keep it around for games, chiptunes, and whatnot. All you're really missing is a web browser.

Much less reliable and trustworthy: there is no way to RE a modern CPU, and backdoors are VERY likely.

Daily reminder that if you are not storing comfy 90s CPUs you will be assfucked sooner or later.

Maybe he actually uses his processing power.