I generally agree with you and the "short" format is what makes it successful, but Melvyn said himself that they choose teaching professors because they would know how to explain subject clearly and after almost two decades of listening I'd say it has mostly worked.
> they choose teaching professors because they would know how to explain subject clearly
Hmm! The majority of academics in the UK teach... most of them reluctantly and badly because it's mandatory for their research contract!
Those that revel in it are used to monologuing extemporanously for hours every day in the lecture hall and supervision without interuption. It's quite far from a snappy conversational media performer.
I did (but also for games). That wasn't the problem. The problem was computers built on closed architecture didn't have a future even if company didn't went to shit like Commodore did.
One could argue that apple is the only exception to the rule. And let's not forget that apple almost went bankrupt in 1997, only to be rescued by Microsoft.
Do you honestly think that the general public gave two shits about closed architectures?
The vast majority of people, who were using computers, were using them to play games. People completely misremember how little interest the general public had in computers (for serious tasks) at the time.
The only exception to that really was the IBM PC. It didn’t have an open architecture either. For a long time it was the case that if you didn’t buy an IBM branded PC, you couldn’t guarantee that any software would actually work on it.
They gave lots of shits about access to cheaper clones, though, and to access to cheaper peripherals.
> It didn’t have an open architecture either.
It was open enough that the closed parts could be reverse engineered, and so the market was already full of clones by the time the Amiga was even released.
Meanwhile, the Amiga was tied to custom chips only manufactured by Commodore, and didn't get anything resembling a clone until Commodore was already bankrupt (DraCo, which ditched a lot of backwards compatibility)
> For a long time it was the case that if you didn’t buy an IBM branded PC, you couldn’t guarantee that any software would actually work on it
By the time the Amiga died, this hadn't been an issue for many years.
I didn’t buy a pc until much later (I was an Acorn user), so you may be right, but the lore around that lasted a reasonable amount of time if my memory serves me correctly. Well into the late 80s.
I’d still argue nobody cared about architectures, they cared about where the type of computer was primarily used. PCs were for the office. Acorn was for education. Atari, Commodore, Sinclair were for games and therefore vulnerable to games consoles.
I seem to remember that PCs had quite a poor rep for games, even during the Wolfenstein -> Doom -> Quake era. Only really shaking that off when the first graphics cards arrived
PCs were definitely at a disadvantage for anything involving a lot of motion, like arcade-style games, platformers, shoot em ups, fighting, and racing games. But the PC did do well at puzzle games like Lemmings, text+graphics games like King's Quest, and sims like SimCity. That disadvantage was gone, at least on a technical level, by 1992-94.
I think PC graphics had two major leaps forward in this era: VGA in 1987, and VLB graphics (on 486 machines) in 1992. The former brought an expanded colour palette, and the latter brought enough memory bandwidth that you didn't need dedicated blitter/sprite chips.
> "PCs were definitely at a disadvantage for anything involving a lot of motion, [...]."
Not on a strictly technical level, especially not in the world of 3D. 2D arcade games à la Silpheed came out for the PC in 1989, running maxed-out on machines that were already a possibility, with VGA graphics and Adlib or MT-32 sound, from late 1987 onwards, roughly the same time the A500 was released in the United States. The notion that PCs had "a bad rep for games" after the release of titles such as Wing Commander doesn't really hold much water.
It was mostly economical factors and some specific usecases that made home computers an excellent, and often superior, choice for many of its future users.
Yes, there were strictly technical limitations. Memory throughput to the video framebuffer did not allow for arbitrary full-screen updates at native frame rate, and there were no hardware sprites or other display hacks to cope with this limitation - the framebuffer was all you had. These limitations became gradually less important throughout the 1990s, depending on what resolution and color depth you were running.
> "Yes, there were strictly technical limitations."
Precision, friend. I never disputed that there were no (strictly) technical limitations for PCs. I only argued against the notion, emphasis mine, that "PCs were definitely at a disadvantage for anything involving a lot of motion, like arcade-style games, platformers, shoot em ups, fighting, and racing games. [...] That disadvantage was gone, at least on a technical level, by 1992-94."
Amigas never saw the light against IBM and compatibles in a lot of ways, and that already before 1992. Two famous titles I already mentioned; one had no Amiga port (Silpheed, 1989) AFAIK, the other (Wing Commander, 1990) came out later as a technically inferior, albeit atmospheric, hand-me-down. When people reminisce about the graphics capabilities of home computers, especially Amigas, they often forget whole, shall we say "inconvenient", genres. Et cetera.
It's not that we forget "inconvenient" genres, but that at the peak of the Amiga popularity, while high end PC's could compete, the vast majority of people did not have those high-end PC's with the requisite graphics and sound cards. We continued to laugh at people with PC's pretty much until Doom, because most of the PC's our friends had were still low end, and lacked expensive graphics- and sound cards, while at the same time, certainly there was a mounting concern over what was trickling down for PC's from the high-end.
With respect to Silpheed, the original version is a graphically primitive 8-bit game and the 1989 version was ported to Apple II-GS - it was hardly performance that was the reason it didn't get an Amiga release. Even the 1993 Sega CD version doesn't contain much that'd be difficult to do on an Amiga (you'd "cheat" and pre-render more version of the ships and rely on the blitter to compensate for the expense of polygons, and possibly use dual playfields and copper lists to allow for the updating background).
Wing Commander, I agree with. The AGA version is nice, but too late.
High-end PC's were also extremely costly prior to the mid-1990s or so (the "Multimedia PC" era). You could've bought an Acorn Archimedes home computer that would have run rings around the Amiga on a pure CPU compute basis and given you the same emerging multimedia (graphics+sound) capabilities, for less than the cost of a high-end IBM-compatible PC.
> High-end PC's were also extremely costly prior to the mid-1990s or so (the "Multimedia PC" era).
I saw the first PCs starting to appear in East German households in 1990. Typically a VGA-capable 286 machine, 16 MHz, 1 MB RAM, two HD FDDs (one 1.44 MB 3.5", one 1.2 MB 5.25"), one 20 to 40 MB hard disk. No sound card. Without monitor, in early 1991, such a machine cost new about 1,500 DM.
At the same time, a new Amiga 500 with 512 kB memory extension cost about 900 bucks, the A590 external 20 MB hard disk an additional 700 DM, for a grand total of 1,600 DM. In other words, we roughly on equal footing here.
A barebones A2000 without hard disk and 1 MB of RAM cost also about 1,600 DM in the same time period. The costs racked-up even quicker to furnish out that bird.
Coincidentally, 1,500 DM is the same price I payed in early 1993 for a well-cared for second-hand 386DX-25 (387 FPU included) graphics workstation.
And the Acorn Archimedes? That machine was essentially a unicorn where I'm from; the Amigas had at least some visibility here.
A 286 machine with no sound card and needing a costly external monitor, while the Amiga could just be hooked up to a household TV (it's not like you could tell the difference in quality at VGA 320x200 resolution). That's hard to describe as a high-end or multimedia-capable PC. It seems that you're proving the point I made.
> A 286 machine with no sound card and needing a costly external monitor, while the Amiga could just be hooked up to a household TV [...].
1. Yes, my example pits a typical PC against a typical A500 as the purchasing choice to make early 1991. In my area, both machines cost roughly the same, but PCs and corresponding architectures were much more widespread and familiar (the GDR worked on its own IBM-compatible clones after all). The point was to illustrate what people here who had the money could choose from shortly after the watershed that is the German reunification. And prices and capability only skewed more in favor of the PC as time went on...
2. A small (14" or 15") monitor was not that expensive (600+ DM; the venerable 1024 x 768-capable, MPR-II-certified Highscreen "LE 1024" cost about 1,000 DM in early 1991); A500 users of the time could go for a new 1084S, at a cost of just about 600 DM. And AdLib and SoundBlaster clones of good value were also not expensive (think around 150 DM, sometimes with one or two games thrown-in). Something one would buy "the month after" if money was a bit tight.
3. If I can't tell the difference between 320 x 200 on a typical CRT or a typical TV in a 1991 kidlet's room I'd be off to an ophthalmologist. The TV-capability was definitely an advantage, though; lotsa cheap CRTs of the era sucked because they made one's fuckin' eyes burn. I remember most small TVs being easier on the eyeballs. I exchanged the 14" monitor my PC came with (was a gift) for a much better 15" CRT about four months later.
4. You talked about "Multimedia-PCs"... which in the mid-90s delivered even better bang-for-bucks. By then, the Amigas were already buried anyways. Unless you were a fan, financially much less mobile, had a need for the luggability (and other pros) only a keyboard-case computer could deliver at competitive prices, or got scammed or somesuch.
5. People here who were too cash-strapped and just wanted to play games usually went for game consoles (Atari 2600 jr. as well as the NES being the most popular choices... 'till the SEGA Mega Drive and especially the SNES took over).
The early ('89 to '91) home computer for the value-oriented customer? The Commodore 64 of course. Saw many. A lot of them second-hand machines bought from Westerners who cleaned house to make room for whatever came next.
> "It's not that we forget "inconvenient" genres, [...]"
I beg to differ; in my experience, the Amiga who doesn't forget is an outlier. ;)
> "[...] the vast majority of people did not have those high-end PC's with the requisite graphics and sound cards."
Once again: The context was the strictly technical, which was brought up by another poster. I am also well aware of the economical, and for specific usecases corresponding technical, realities. But that is best served by (comparative) market analysis and not just anecdotes. Which brings me to...
> "We continued to laugh at people with PC's pretty much until Doom, because most of the PC's our friends had were still low end, and lacked expensive graphics- and sound cards, while at the same time, certainly there was a mounting concern over what was trickling down for PC's from the high-end."
In my little corner of East Germany, I didn't feel the same about Amiga users. For you simply were not relevant; I didn't know anyone with an Amiga until much, much later (2007!).
> "With respect to Silpheed, the original version is a graphically primitive 8-bit game and the 1989 version was ported to Apple II-GS - it was hardly performance that was the reason it didn't get an Amiga release."
It serves as an example of an arcade game with good production values, and many supported graphics and sound modes ("expandability"), for a PC of the era, i. e. the outgoing 80s.
> The context was the strictly technical, which was brought up by another poster.
That's fine, but it was not what I took issue with in your response.
> It serves as an example of an arcade game with good production values, and many supported graphics and sound modes ("expandability"), for a PC of the era, i. e. the outgoing 80s.
It serves, to me, as an example of a pretty primitive game given the year the port was released, basic enough to replicate on an 8-bit machine, that likely didn't get a port because it wasn't well known enough in the markets where the Amiga was popular to bother licensing it and too basic to be competitive.
> Do you honestly think that the general public gave two shits about closed architectures?
First, this specific argument is about the computer-buying public, not the general public. Furthermore, yes, many people also bought into the IBM-PC & Compatibles eco-system because it was much more open. Many young(er) urban professionals of the time took their work home, to be continued on computers. I think financial mobility, supply, as well as culture (incl. generational divides) are more much important factors.
> The vast majority of people, who were using computers, were using them to play games.
Do you have data to back that up? Because where I'm from (East Germany), strictly based on my observations, this didn't track; many PCs were used as intended: general-purpose computing. That means work and play.
Not being extremely deadly is low bar since most of your life (with some luck) will be spent being old. I'd rather see my years being more than bearable.
Cool work, but I'm more fascinated by your claim "99% of your life is stored in WhatsApp...".
Not even remotely true for me even if it would encompass all messaging apps I use. I guess I'm just an old introvert, but it makes me wonder how life looks like for those for whom it is true.
The way to absolute dominance of WhatsApp with the Normies has't been sufficiently analyzed, I reckon.
Somehow, WhatsApp managed to become extremely popular and heavily used by people who have trouble switching on a desktop pc. Even senior citizens have no trouble using it.
Is it because they have a high motivation to use it? The UI / UX of WhatsApp surely isn't great, I'd even say it's quite bad. Where am I wrong? What am I not seeing?
I don't use WhatsApp, I helped most of my family and many friends move away from it, and I feel like we (you and I) see WA in a similar way. IMO the main issue here is the network effect and vendor lock-in (for the lack of a better term -- I'm writing this from my phone in a rush).
> Where am I wrong? What am I not seeing?
English is my second language, so maybe I'm missing some context here, but every time I hear techies calling non-techies "Normies", it's used in a derogatory / condescending fashion. That's reductive (non-techies are not a homogenous group) and somewhat intellectually lazy.
To give you an example, WA users in the US and, say Portugal or Poland ended up using it for slightly different reasons and in a different technical context. WA used to be the best video chat app for quite some time in the UK, AT or PL (imo), and I know of many people who started using it for that specific reason (esp. important for large migrant communities). FaceTime wasn't that popular because Android market share in the EU was bigger than in the US.
Contacts aren't stored on the phone, messages act as contacts. Phone and video calls also on WhatsApp. Photos are shared via WhatsApp so that's where the gallery is. It even functions as a calendar of sorts – events are organised in WhatsApp groups so there you have directions and dates and who brings what. More and more businesses use WhatsApp to communicate with customers.
Why people like this, I do not know. But this is what I observe. Maybe software in general is too shit to use so people prefer to take a sub-optimal WhatsApp-based life over fighting their phones at every step. And I can't blame them.
The killer application are the group chats. Normies can't make an email group, or remember to reply to all, or even make a Yahoo! Group [dead] or Google Group [dead?].
It's very easy to setup a group in WhatsApp and keep the member list updated.
For bonus points, it's very difficult to Ctr-C the info in WhatsApp, it's easier to press the arrow and forward the message to another WhatsApp group.
Once you have all your groups in WhatsApp, it's easier to use it for everything.
PS: Also, a few eons ago in many countries SMS had a cost, and WhatsApp was free, it was so another good point to use it.
The worst part is that it wasn't even free, you were still paying for the data unless you were on wifi. Standard text messaging was so expensive (and so terrible) that data rates obliterated standard phone services in both quality and price.
I remember paying 23 cents per SMS. Still, carriers were somehow surprised when people moved away from them.
Funnily enough, now that RCS is slowly making its way back, people seem to forget that free unlimited messages are hardly guaranteed with these services. Can't wait for the backlash when the first iPhone users start getting charged for RCS messages with their Android contacts.
WhatsApp nailed the onboarding experience. In a time where other services asked you to create an account with an email and password, which is enough of a hurdle already, WhatsApp looked up your phone number and said "I'm sending you an SMS, enter the number you received to check we got it right". And then, it never asked for anything ever again.
WhatsApp was the first messaging app I remember that didn't require a user account.
People already had the phone numbers of people they knew so they just had to install the app and could immediately chat with any of their contacts.
Compared to chat apps with usernames where you started with an empty contact list, the barrier to start using it was very low. It was basically a drop-in replacement for SMS. Group chat and free messages were the reason to switch.
The UX is pretty good. At least as good as any competitor. There are no ads. It's cross-platform. It's secure. Group chats work.
WhatsApp gained dominance when the alternatives were still SMS and BBM! You don't have to resort to ego-boosting put-downs to explain why it is so popular.
Whatsapp has absolutely taken over communication in the world (aside from the US for some reason)? Funerals, trips, fund-raisers, even interacting with businesses is now done on WhatsApp in my country. When briefly I decided to try to de-Meta my life, I found that it was one service I absolutely cannot do without and still function as a member of my family and community.
Network effects are network effects. I really feel physical disgust and try to keep it off my devices, but while it's feasible when living normal, uh, "no-lifer" life, it's unfortunately basically impossible when I travel or even just participate in local communities (sports, hobbies, etc). In the latter case, it's simply rude and disorganizing to refuse to join the group chat, in the former case it's often the only way to contact hotel/taxi/whoever you urgently need to contact in some not so touristy spot. (And, BTW, it's designed to be practically unusable, if you don't allow it to access your contact book, so no dirty tricks like that will fly.)
As to "how do they even manage to use it", well, the mere notion of a great UI is vastly overhyped in the first place (by designers themselves, most of all). People get used to just about anything, if they are taught to use it. And learning a 5-step sequence to use any app like this — anybody can do that, even a 85 year old (even if they swear they can't).
It's really a demographic issue. I've found that in the US relatively few people use WA. Same for SEA. But in western Europe almost everything is done on WA.
From "neighborhoodwatch" via "the school information" to "colleagues". Hell, even governments and public transportation have "feel unsafe? message us on whatsapp 06..." In the Netherlands it's truly omnipresent, and without WA you will be left out socially.
I'm reluctant of WA, because I'm steering clear of Meta as much as possible, but I do use it to: keep in touch with at least 26 social groups - friends, family, colleagues, co-workers, business - keep in touch with my date/love, my mother, and father who lives across the world.
granted, there's a big move going towards signal lately - finally. But I'm not sure how big this really is, and how sticky it will prove. Nor if this is just my bubble or truly across the whole country.
Even within the Netherlands there are pockets of Signal users, Telegram users, and in rare occasions even people using SMS or iMessage. Facebook Messenger also has a foothold in some circles.
That said, you'd be an outlier if you have a mobile phone but no WhatsApp. Everyone has WhatsApp, but fortunately not everyone is using it for everything. Unfortunately, that usually means using an even less secure and trustworthy messenger service.
Some people I know seems to be more split between Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. I don't see anyone being 99% in one app, and certainly not WhatsApp. I think I know like three people who use WhatsApp privately.
I do know people working in sales and purchasing and I wouldn't be surprised if they had 25% or more of their professional lives in WhatsApp. Previously they used Skype heavily. So this could be interesting for them.
I have 99% of my life is in Telegram; I like the choice between end to end encryption or not (for unimportant stuff) so I create private groups for everything and just toss everything in there. I have a (custom) LLM bot which does stuff depending what the group is about and what is posted. Telegram is very fast and convenient (yes, because it's not all encrypted, just the stuff you want to be).
For most people, their life isn't stored in neat Notion database.
Instead, if you have calendar + email + their main messaging apps (e.g. WhatsApp) you cover the majority of it. It's messy and unstructured — but luckily LLMs are great at that
I'm actually working on an app to replace my Delicious Library, but at least at first solely focused on books and supporting multiple users and features I missed in the original.
If all goes well I expect to have early version ready by middle of this year. While some features will require subscription, features not incurring ongoing costs won't. I like to think of it as an example of social software for introverts :)
I am hesitant to talk about details, but I haven't felt so excited about something in a long time.
Because we miss what Reader was and not what it could have become.
As a more prolific blog writer at the time I also liked that their bot would include number of people who were subscribed to my blog in their User Agent.
> As a more prolific blog writer at the time I also liked that their bot would include number of people who were subscribed to my blog in their User Agent.
Something I generally appreciate with Google: The level of craftsmanship and the amount of elegant designs like this they come up with. (There are also… other things, but their standards are high compared to many competitors.)
