Same here.
The main difference seems to be not so much the visual interface as
the controls, which have been reprogrammed as the hardware changed.
1. Early users of MS-DOS and Windows3 became adept users of
keyboard control (with hotkeys etc.)
2. Win3 also adopted the mouse: which programmers adopted as
the main way to control WinXP and Vista desktops. But they enabled
hotkeys as before, which experienced users found still the faster and better
way to control XP.
3. Win7 was designed more for laptops than desktops, oriented to
control by touchpads rather than either external mice or keyboards
(although both were enabled.) Power users find this is a step backwards
so far as typical laptop keyboards and mice are functionally inferior and
less reliable than those for desktops in the 1990s.
4. Win8 was designed for newer tablet hardware i.e. oriented to
control by touchscreen rather than keyboards. Programmers may
find it convenient to build on a platform of touchpad controls designed
for Win7 -- which encourages them to ignore mice and keyboards,
as not found on tablets.
Even keyboard design has evolved for the worse i.e. deteriorated
over 30 years. Early keyboards emulated the best typewriter
keyboards (after 100 years of continuous improvement) in
(1) clicky or firm response
(2) key layout, viz. programmable Dvorak or QWERTY arrangements
(3) AT board layout, with F-keys in two columns at the left, matching
the 4-columb keypad at right.
#1 supported touch typists, i.e. permitted control of the computer
without the need to look at your fingers. This control was amplified
by keyboard executive commands (using Ctl and Alt keys) rather
than mouse functions.
Adept users could use the keypad with the right hand as touch
typists (without looking) for data entry etc.: early F-key configurations
offered a number of preset commands (e.g. F3 for repeat Alt + F4
for exit or shutdown) that the touch typist could also master (without
looking, exploiting #3.) Touch typists had confidence in their
keyboards because of #1. As early as 1985 I had programmed the
F-keys (in Perfect Writer) with a whole range of special-purpose
software commands. This was normal for early office suites of
the 1980s (which from the 1990s tended to reduce key commands,
favouring instead mouse commands. The declining quality of
keyboards (becoming fragile, ultra-cheap and replaceable)
reinforced programmers' reorientation from keyboards to mice.
In brief, the skills and high degree of accuracy users learned
and developed in the 1980s were no longer supported by the
hardware market, and less than before by programmers. Win7's
relationship to the touchpad and Win8's to the touchscreen
confirms programmers are nowadays oriented mainly toward the
hardware (and no longer or much less to efficiency in the
execution of office functions, e.g. entering figures, drawing
in CAD, etc.) After all, the laptops we find when we go to
the store nowadays are preconfigured to be "entertainment
centres" than business machines.
