Maybe I can't actually remember the past as well as I think
I can. I recall when I used 1200 and 2400 baud dialup. It
was slow, but it was smooth. I used to poke around on BBSes
quite a lot, and I recall the speed at which the characters
scrolled into view. At least, I think I do.
Slow never bothered me. If I could type faster than the
characters would show up, that never bothered me.Fast
forward to "right this minute" and things are a little
different. I'm on a slow connection. That is to say, it's a
choppy connection. It seems to vary quite a bit. I have a
few downloads going, and I'm watching their speed bounce all
over the place. Even before those were started, I was using
SSH to connect to SDF and Grex and a few others. I was
typing a few things up for gopher, and on IRC, etc., and
noting that the connection was choppy.
Hopefully that makes sense. Slow is one thing, choppy is
another. You could have a river that is moving slowly, which
means it will take longer to get where you're going, and
then you may have a river that is choppy, which will also
slow your progress, but which will make your ride a lot less
enjoyable.
As I type right now, I might wait several seconds before
what I type shows up. When it does show up, an entire line
or more of text might come in all at once. At other times,
it moves along smoothly, and at still other times, I get a
few charawcters of what I type at a time.
(Coincidentally, I am not seeing my typing and spelling
errors right away, and I certainly don't want to go back and
fix them at these choppy speeds. Spellcheck at the end I
guess.)
Lest you think less of me, oh gopher user, know that I am
quite used to slow computing. I really quite enjoy it. I
have a z80-based computer that I can't wait to get our of
storage. I have an 8088 that I just love to death. It really
is just the choppy computing that I don't enjoy.
I also realize that there may be ways to mitigate this kind
of network trouble. Maybe there are ways on my end, or maybe
it's just the network that I'm using. There is probably a
good explaation, and a good solution. I just don't know what
either is.
Lastly, I realize that I'm a big baby. I'm spoiled, and
complaingin about something that I'm lucky to have access to
at all. The world is amazing. As Jim Gaffigan said,
"everything is amazing, and nobody's happy." I am happy
though. I'm really quite glad that I can do what I'm doing
with computers right now. And if it's chppy, I accept that.
Heck, I suppose it's a new experience. Well, different from
the everyday at least.
