4axioms

Four self-evident truths.

Category: Technology

Progress Bars: An Exercise in Being Patient


by Adrian Patience

When I was a kid growing up in the 80s, I remember our first computer was an Atari 400. The console had a keyboard built into it, and it had a top loading slot where cartridges could be inserted. The back of the unit had a serial port for connecting peripherals. We had the Atari 410 tape drive that used audio cassettes to record programs and save files, but you could also buy software on cassettes.

As crude as this hardware is in comparison to today’s technology, I still think that it was rather brilliant to store software on audio cassettes…but I digress. Despite the 410’s aforementioned brilliance, it had one major deficiency…it was slow. I remember that my Mom and Dad had bought me this Mickey Mouse game on cassette, and nobody could ever figure out how to get it to load. Eventually the cassette/the 410 tape drive where dismissed as being defective.

One day, in an attempt to curb my growing boredom, I decided to connect the 410 tape drive and give the Mickey Mouse cassette another go. Having exhausted all of my cartridge games, the only game I hadn’t played was the Mickey Mouse game. I put the cassette in, rewound it, and pressed play. The tape played through, and the stopped at a certain position. This was the same result everybody else got when they tried to get this game to load. After 15 minutes looking at the cursor on the screen nothing had happened. By this time I had drifted away (daydreaming). I was probably thinking about how great it would be if I could actually play this game. After about 45 minutes to an hour the Micky Mouse game had loaded, and the iconic mouse’s face was displayed in 8-bit glory on my screen. As it turns out, there was nothing wrong with the 410 or the cassette holding the software, but rather the machine was so slow that this was how long it took for the program to load. Everybody had been so used to the nearly instantaneous load time of the game cartridges that nobody thought that it would take longer for the tape to load. Granted, I found this out by accident, but I learned a valuable lesson that day…have patience. All good things come to those who wait.

I relay the above childhood story only because I think it directly relates to the next portion of this article. Progress bars, download windows, CD import screens, and loading screens are ubiquitous in modern day computing. Irrespective of what computer, gaming console, tablet, netbook, or smart phone that you have…progress bars will be familiar to you. Whether or not you ignore the progress bar, or you eagerly watch it in anticipation for your download/process to finish; the progress bar has an impact on your computing experience and on your life. After recently downloading a 1.49 GB file, I started to reminisce about how waiting for computers has affected my life. I remember when I had a Pentium 100 MHz PC in 1996 that had a 28.8 baud modem that would download at 2.8 Kilobytes per second. Downloading even the smallest of files from the internet was a time consuming and unwelcome chore, but most times I would simply zone out and think while the file transfer was being received. Downloading gave me time to organize my thoughts, and think deeply about various things–mostly school work at that time. Fast forward to today where I’m able to download at 768 kilobytes per second, and I only really have to wait when I’m downloading files that are in excess of 500 megabytes. Now waiting for downloading/loading is almost a thing of the past because there really isn’t much waiting to be done–with the exception of some PS3 games that load files to the PS3 hard drive. Computers and broadband internet have gotten so swift that you only get the opportunity to think when downloading really large files.

I might seem out of date with today’s generation that expects everything that is computer/internet related to be performed instantaneously, but I think that something is lost with everything being so expeditious–not that I want to go back to 28.8 baud modems. This relates somewhat to my having read Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows.” I have written a review about “The Shallows” in a previous post so I won’t go into it in detail here, but Carr’s main thesis is that the rapid pace of information technology is ruining our brains’ ability to think deeply and thoughtfully about something for a prolonged period of time. While I agree with Carr on many points, I would argue that progress bars and having to wait for a process to finish could be our last bastion of hope in salvaging what is left of deep cognitive thought.

The progress bar reminds us that in order to get something we have to be patient; something that I think is totally lost on many in our postmodern times. I find this quite important because it proves that technology merely aides us to achieve efficacious results. That the real work is still done by a person who has the ability to patiently think though a problem and develop a creative solution. Humans have cognitive abilities that extend far beyond the finite realm of computing, and we should not deprecate those abilities. Who knows…while staring at a progress bar somebody might have an ah-ha moment, and discover a new game-changing idea or innovation that could once again transform the world.

I realize that some might consider this to be too idealistic. I’m sure some readers are thinking “a game changing idea coming from some guy zoning out looking at a progress bar…yeah right!” While I’m sure I can’t change your mind, I’ll just add that I have had some really significant ideas develop while zoning out to a progress bar. In fact, many parts of this website were conceived while downloading HD episodes of the “Engadget Show” whilst zoning out to the progress bar.

Whether you agree, disagree, or think that this article is pure rubbish…I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Please feel free to leave a comment below. : )


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Posted April 13th, 2011

Categories Internet, Technology, Thoughts  Tags , , ,

A Legacy of Apple Hand-Held Hardware

By Adrian Patience

With the release of the iPad 2 in the US (March 11, 2011), and its impending global release (March 25, 2011), I’ve decided to look at the legacy of Apple hand-held hardware.

I think the best way for me to examine said legacy of Apple hand-held hardware is to share my personal experiences with the Apple devices that I have had the privilege to own. To add context to this history I think it’s pertinent that I mention that I’ve been an Apple/Mac user since the mid-nineties (circa. 1995/96). I’ll spare everybody the history of the exact Apple computers/devices that I have owned–and still own–over the past years. I will mention that my history with Apple computers began with machines that used the Motorola 68000 line of processors; in 1999 the logical progression of upgrading led me to the PowerPC line of Macintosh computers.

Around this same era (circa. 1998/99) I got the Apple Newton MessagePad 120. The MessagePad 120, originally released in 1996, I bought used off Ebay for $180.00. The device was in mint condition. At the time the US Robotics Palm Pilot was all the rage. I had a Windows PC as well, but the Palm Pilot wasn’t a suitable hand-held device candidate for me, as I was using my Mac more than my Windows machine. The MessagePad 120 had an ARM 20Mhz processor that was considered blazingly fast for a hand-held device at that time. It had/has a black and white–calculator quality–LCD display, a stylus for user input, and it had a decent selection of applications. Overall, the device is utterly antiquated in comparison to today’s technology. Notwithstanding the MessagePad’s primitivity, in terms of mobile hand-held computing Apple was well ahead of every other company. Even if we consider the industrial design of the MessagePad 120…it still has a pleasing visual and aesthetic appeal despite being 15 years old.

The next hand-held Apple device I purchased came 4 years after having acquired the MessagePad 120. In the summer of 2003 I broke down and bought a 3rd generation 10gig iPod. I must admit that when the 1st generation iPod was released in 2001, I was less than impressed. At that time I was more interested in CD players that could play MP3 CDs , and I had a Sony Minidisc player that adequately served my portable music needs. I bought the 3rd generation iPod for 3 reasons:

1. My Minidisc player broke.
2. I had just got a G4 iMac, and the iPod was a nice accessory.
3. I was looking for new gadget to buy. : )

In truth, if my minidisc player didn’t fail I probably wouldn’t have bought the iPod. The Minidisc player could only hold 74 minutes of music (about 15-20 songs), and you had to record all of the tracks in realtime to the disc. Despite Minidisc’s shortcomings it worked well, however, the iPod’s advantages were clear. I could sync my entire iTunes library to the one device, and subsequently carry all of my music around with me at all times.

An additional 6 years would pass before I purchased my next piece of Apple hand-held hardware. In Spring 2009 I got the 2nd generation iPod touch. This was most definitely a exponential leap forward in terms of technology. Besides being an MP3 player the ipod touch could: browse the web through WiFi, run high calibre applications that you would previously only think of running on a desktop/laptop computer, it could play video, and it incorporated an innovative touch screen interface.

Looking back on this legacy of Apple devices, I see the iPod touch as being the amalgamation of all of the best features from the MessagePad 120 and the 3rd generation iPod. However, to classify the iPod touch as a mere amalgam of the two aforementioned devices would be a severe understatement, as the iPod touch adds layers of functionality far beyond anything the MessagePad 120 or 3rd generation iPod could come close to accomplishing. The reason why I see the MessagePad 120 and the 3rd generation iPod as the forerunners to the iPod touch should be axiomatic. It’s clear that the genesis of the iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad/iPad 2 devices was the Newton MessagePad line of products. While the Newton products were not commercially successful, they did lay the foundation for portable hand-held computers that could rival or potentially replace a desktop/laptop computer. This is interesting when you consider that it has taken 15 years for the industry to reach the point where you can have a hand-held device–iPod touch, iPad, iPad 2, Xoom, Galaxy tablet–that can rival the speed, power, and features of a desktop or laptop computer.

Regardless, Apple had the idea and proof of concept for mobile computing with the Newton MessagePad products. Is it any wonder that Apple is currently leading the industry in hand-held/tablet computers? With 15 years of research, development, industrial design, and design aesthetics under its belt, it doesn’t seem that remarkable that the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are commercial success stories.


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Posted March 18th, 2011

Categories Technology, Thoughts  Tags , , , , , ,