Conjuring up a frequency graph from 2004-present doesn't help your argument, as the VCR format wars were pretty much over a good 15 years beforehand.

"VCR" could have meant either VHS or Betamax to a consumer in the early '80s.

At least VHS specifies a particular standard, and "player" in that context has a loose connection with record player, or tape player , being the thing you play your purchased records / tapes / videos on.

A year or two ago I read about some guy who is still managing the trailer park he inherited from his dad with a TRS-80 (I think), using an app he wrote way back when. If it works it works!

I do agree with that completely and I'd like to add to it with an additional point.

When things break it sucks, but this does present you with an opportunity. If it's already not working, there's no harm in taking it apart and taking a look around. Maybe you'll see something obviously at fault, maybe you won't. But there's literally no harm in trying to fix it, especially if otherwise you were planning to toss it out.

And I really can't tell you the number of times I've seen a device stop working, and apon closer inspection the entire problem was something very simple, like an old wire broke at the solder point, and with it disconnected, the power switch doesn't work. When I was a kid and didn't know how to solder, I would fix issues like that with some aluminum foil, and often it worked. Just start with a screwdriver, open things up, take a look around. We owe it to ourselves and to the planet to just give it a shot.

USB-C. We are clearly progressing. I never want to go back to the world where every phone had a proprietary power brick and connector.

Ah yes, the shibboleet

The author’s take is detached from reality, filled with hypocrisy and gatekeeping.

"Opinionated" is another term - for friendliness and neutrality. Complaining about reality means a degree of detachment from it by intention.

When was the last time, Mr author, you had to replace a failed DIMM in your modern computer?

When was the last time, Mr commenter, you had to make your own furniture because it's harder to find a thing of the right dimensions to buy? But when that was more common, it was also easier to get the materials and the tools, because ordering things over the Internet and getting them delivered the next day was less common. In terms of managing my home I feel that 00s were nicer than now.

Were the centralized "silk road" of today with TSMC kicked out (a nuke, suppose, or a political change), would you prefer less efficient yet more distributed production of electronics? That would have less allowance for various things hidden from users, that happen in modern RAM. Possibly much less.

If there was no technological or production cost improvement, we’d just use the old version.

I think their point was that there's no architectural innovation in some things.

Yes, there is a regular shift in computing philosophy, but this is driving by new technologies and usually computing performance descending to be accessibly at commodity pricing. The Raspberry Pi wasn’t a revolutionary fast computer, but it changed the world because it was enough computing power and it was dirt cheap.

Maybe those shifts are in market philosophies in tech.

I agree, there is something appealing about it to you and me, but most people don’t care…and thats okay! To them its a tool to get something done. They are not in love with the tool, nor do they need to be.

There's a screwdriver. I can imagine there's a fitting basic amount of attention a piece of knowledge gets. I can imagine some person not knowing how to use a screwdriver (substitute with something better) is below that. And some are far above that, maybe.

I think the majority of humans is below the level of knowledge computers in our reality require. That's not the level you or the author possess. That's about the level I possessed in my childhood, nothing impressive.

Mr. author, no one is stopping you from using your TI-99 today, but in fact you didn’t use it to write your article either. Why is that? Because the TI-99 is a tiny fraction of the function and complexity of a modern computer. Creating something close to a modern computer from discrete components with “part numbers you can look up” would be massively expensive, incredibly slow, and comparatively consume massive amounts of electricity vs today’s modern computers.

It would seem we are getting a better deal from the same amount of energy spent with modern computers then. Does this seem right to you?

It's philosophy and not logic, but I think you know that for getting something you pay something. There's no energy out of nowhere.

Discrete components may not make sense. But maybe the insane efficiency we have is paid for with our future. It's made possible by centralization of economy and society and geopolitics, which wasn't needed to make TI-99.

Do you think a surgeon understands how a CCD electronic camera works that is attached to their laparoscope? Is the surgeon un-educated that they aren’t fluent in circuit theory that allows the camera to display the guts of the patient they’re operating on?

A surgeon has another specialist nearby, and that specialist doesn't just know these things, but also a lot of other knowledge necessary for them and the surgeon to unambiguously communicate, avoiding fatal mistakes. A bit more expense is spent here than just throwing a device at a surgeon not understanding how it works. A fair bit.

Such gatekeeping! So unless you know the actual engineering principles behind a device you’re using, you shouldn’t be allowed to use it?

Why not:

Such respect! In truth, why wouldn't we trust students to make good use of understanding of their tools and the universe around them, since every human's corpus of knowledge is unique and wonderful, and not intentionally limit them.

Innovation isn’t just creating new features or functionality. In fact, most I’d argue is taking existing features or functions and delivering them for substantially less cost/effort.

Is change of policy innovation? In our world I see a lot of that. Driven by social and commercial and political interests naturally.

As I’m reading this article, I am thinking about a farmer watching Mr. author eat a sandwich made with bread.

A basic touch on your thoughts further is supposed to be part of school program in many countries.

Perhaps, but these simple solutions also can frequently only offer simple functionality. Additionally, “the best engineering solutions” are often some of the most expensive. You don’t always need the best, and if best is the only option, then that may mean going without, which is worst than a mediocre solution and what we frequently had in the past.

Does more complex functionality justify this? Who decides what we need? Who decides what is better and what is worse?

This comes to policy decisions again. Authority. I think modern authority is misplaced, and were it not, we'd have an environment more similar to what the author wants.

The reason your TI-99 and my c64 don’t require constant updates is because they were born before the concept of cybersecurity existed. If you’re going to have internet connected devices they its a near requirement to receive updates for security.

Not all updates are for security. And an insecure device still can work years after years.

If you don’t want internet connected devices, you can get those too, but they may be extremely expensive, so pony up the cash and put your money where your mouth is.

Willpower is a tremendous limitation which people usually ignore. It's very hard to do this when everyone around doesn't. It would be very easy if you were choosing for yourself without network effects and interoperability requirements.

So your argument for me doesn't work in your favor, when looking closely. (Similar to "if you disagree with this law, you can explain it at the police station".)

Don’t think even a DEC PDP 11 mainframe sold in the same era was entirely known by a handful of people, and even that is a tiny fraction of functionality of today’s cheap commodity PCs.

There's a graphical 2d space shooter game for PDP-11. Just saying.

Also on its architecture some Soviet clones were made, in the form factor of PCs. With networking capabilities, they were used as command machines for other kinds of simpler PCs, or for production lines, and could be used as file shares, IIRC. I don't remember what that was called, but the absolutely weirdest part was seeing in comments people remembering using that in university computer labs and even in school computer labs, so that actually existed in the USSR.

Kinda expensive though, even without Soviet inefficiency.

It was made as a consumer electronics product with the least cost they thought they could get away with and have it still sell.

Yes, which leads to different requirements today. This doesn't stop the discussion. That leads it to the question what changed. We are not obligated to take the perpetual centralization of economies and societies like some divine judgement.

We don’t need most of these consumer electronics to last.

Who's we? Are you deciding what will Intel RnD focus on, or what will Microsoft change in their OS and applications, or what will Apple produce?

Authority, again.

If it still works, why isn’t he using one? Could it be he wants the new features and functionality like the rest of us?

Yes. It still works for offline purposes. It doesn't work where the modern web is not operable with it. This in my opinion reinforces their idea, not yours.

These are my replies. I'll add my own principal opinion - a civilization can be as tall as a human forming it. Abstractions leak, and our world is continuous, so all abstractions leak. To know which do and don't for the particular purpose, you need to know principles. You can use abstractions without looking inside them to build a system inside an architecture, but you can't build an architecture and pick real world solutions for those abstractions without understanding those real wold solutions. Also horizontal connections between abstractions are much more tolerant to leaks than vertical ones.

And there's no moral law forbidding us to look above our current environment to understand in which directions it may change.

Yes, but also the bit about when someone creates an application without understanding the underlying way that it actually functions. Like I can make a web app, but i don't need to understand memory allocation to do it. The maker of the app is a level or two of abstraction from what the base metal of the computer is being told to do.

Gotcha, thank you for the extra context so I understand your point. I'll respond to your original statement now that I understand it better:

I ALSO think the author would prefer more broad technical literacy, but his core arguement seemed to be that those making things dont understand the tech they’re built upon and that unintended consequences can occur when that happens.

I think the author's argument on that is also not a great one.

Lets take your web app example. As you said, you can make the app, but you don't understand the memory allocation, and why? Because the high level language or framework you wrote it in does memory management and garbage collection. However, there are many, many, MANY, more layers of abstraction beside just your code and the interpreter. Do you know the webserver front to back? Do you know which ring your app or the web server is operating in inside the OS (ring 3 BTW)? Do you know how the IP stack works in the server? Do you know how the networking works that resolves names to IP addresses or routes the traffic appropriately? Do you know how the firewalls work that the traffic is going over when it leaves the server? Back on the server, do you know how the operating system makes calls to the hardware via device drivers (ring 1) or how those calls are handled by the OS kernel (ring 0)? Do you know how the system bus works on the motherboard or how the L1, L2, and L3 cache affect the operation and performance of the server overall? How about that assembly language isn't even the bottom of abstraction? Below that all of this data is merely an abstraction of binary, which is really just the presence or absence of voltage on a pit or in a bit register in ICs scattered across the system?

I'll say probably not. And thats just fine! Why? Because unless your web app is going to be loaded onto a spacecraft with a 20 to 40 year life span and you'll never be able to touch it again, then having all of that extra knowledge and understanding only have slight impacts on the web app for its entire life. Once you get one or maybe two levels of abstraction down, the knowledge is a novelty not a requirement. There's also exceptions to this if you're writing software for embedded systems where you have limited system resources, but again, this is an edge case that very very few people will ever need to worry about. The people in those generally professions do have the deep understanding of those platforms they're responsible for.

Focus on your web app. Make sure its solving the problem that it was written to solve. Yes, you might need to dive a bit deeper to eek out some performance, but that comes with time and experience anyway. The author talks like even the most novice people need the ultimately deep understanding through all layers of abstraction. I think that is too much of a burden, especially when it acts as a barrier to people being able to jump in and use the technology to solve problems.

Perhaps the best example of the world that I think the author wants would be the 1960s Apollo program. This was a time where the pinnacle of technology was being deployed in real-time to solve world moving problems. Human kind was trying to land on the moon! The most heroic optimization of machines and procedures had to be accomplished for even a chance for this to go right. The best of the best had to know every. little. thing. about. everything. People's lives were at stake! National pride was at stake! Failure was NOT an option! All of that speaks to more of what the author wants for everyone today.

However, that's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist today. Compute power today is CHEAP!!! High level program languages and frameworks are so easy to understand that programming it is accessible to everyone with a device and a desire to use it. We're not going to the moon with this. Its the kid down the block that figured out how to use If This Then That to make a light bulb turn on when he farts into a microphone. The beauty is the accessibility. The democratization of compute. We don't need gatekeepers demanding the deepest commitment to understanding before the primitive humans are allowed to use fire.

Are there going to be problems or things that don't work? Yes. Will the net benefit of cheap and readily available compute in the hands of everyone be greater than the detriments, I believe yes. It appears the author disagrees with me.

/sorry for the wall of text

As with your original comment, i like your argument. Additionally, I dig the wall of text. WoT, written well, leaves little ambiguity and helps focus the conversation.
I don't disagree on any particular point. I agree that its a net positive for programming to be approachable to more people, and that it can't be approachable to many while requiring apollo era genius and deep understanding of technology. It would be a very different world if only PhDs could program computers.
To that, I believe the article author is overstating a subtle concern that I think is theoretically relevant and important to explore.
If, over the fullness of decades, programming becomes so approachable (ie, you tell an AI in plain language what you want and it makes it flawlessly), people will have less incentive to learn the foundational concepts required to make the same program "from scratch". Extending that train of thought, we could reach a point where a fundamental, "middle-technology" fails and there simply isn't anyone who understands how to fix the problem. I suspect there will always be hobbiests and engineers that maintain esoteric knowledge for a variety of reasons. But, with all the levels of abstraction and fail points inadvertently built in to code over so much time passing, it's possible to imagine a situation where essentially no-one understands the library of the language that a core dependency was written in decades before. Not only would it be a challange to fix, it could be hard to find in the first place.
If the break happens in your favorite cocktail recipe app, its Inconvenient. If the break happens in a necessary system relied on by fintec to move peoples money from purchase to vendor to bank to vendor to person, the scale and importance of the break is devastating to the world. Even if you can seek out and find the few that have knowledge enough to solve the problem, the time spent with such a necessary function of modern life unavailable would be catastrophic.
If a corporation, in an effort to save money, opts to hire a cheap 'vibe-coder' in the '20s and something they 'vibe' winds up in important stacks, it could build fault lines into future code that may be used for who-knows-what decades from now.
There are a lot of ifs in my examples. It may never happen and we'll get the advantage of all the ideas that are able to be made reality through accessibility. However, it's better to think about it now rather than contend with the eventually all at once when a catastrophe occurs.
You're right that doom and gloom isn't helpful, but I don't think the broader idea is without merit.

There are a lot of ifs in my examples. It may never happen and we’ll get the advantage of all the ideas that are able to be made reality through accessibility. However, it’s better to think about it now rather than contend with the eventually all at once when a catastrophe occurs. You’re right that doom and gloom isn’t helpful, but I don’t think the broader idea is without merit.

There are some actual real-life examples that match your theoreticals, but the piece missing is the scale of consequences. What has generally occurred is that the fallout from the old thing failing wasn't that big of a deal, or that a modern solution could be designed and built completely replacing the legacy solution even without full understanding of it.

A really really small example of this if from my old 1980s Commodore 64 computer. At the time it used a very revolutionary sound chip to make music and sound effects. It was called the SID chip. Here's one of the them constructed in 1987.

It combined digital technologies (which are still used today) with analog technologies (that nobody makes anymore in the same way). Sadly, these chips also have a habit of dying over time because of how they were originally manufactured. With the supply of these continuously shrinking there were efforts to come up with a modern replacement. Keep in mind these are hobbyists. What they came up with was this:

This is essentially a whole Raspberry Pi computer that fits in the same socket in the 1980s Commodore 64 that accepts the input music instructions from the computer and runs custom written software to produce the same desired output the legacy digital/analog SID chip built in 1982. The computing power in this modern replacement SID chip replacement is more than 30x that of the entire Commodore 64 from the 80s! It could be considered overkill to use so much computing power where the original didn't, but again, compute is dirt cheap today. This new part isn't expensive either. Its about $35 to buy.

This is what I think will happen when our legacy systems finally die without the knowledge to service or maintain them. Modern engineers using modern technologies will replace them providing the same function.

I certainly hope so! Human ingenuity has gotton us here. I'm interacting with you across who knows how much distance, using a handheld device that folds up.
.....but, just because we've gotten ahead of trouble and found solutions thus far, doesn't mean that an unintended bit of code, or hardware fault, or lack of imagination can't cause consequences further down the road.
I appreciate your optimism and pragmatic understanding. You seem to be a solution driven person that believes in our ability to reason and fix things. We'll definitely need that type of attitude and approach when and if something goes sideways.

…but, just because we’ve gotten ahead of trouble and found solutions thus far, doesn’t mean that an unintended bit of code, or hardware fault, or lack of imagination can’t cause consequences further down the road.

Absolutely true.

I guess my thought is that the benefits of our rapid growth outweigh the consequences of forgotten technology. I'll admit though, I'm not unbiased. I have a vested interest. I do very well professionally being the bridge of some older technologies to modern ones myself.