My New Photoshop

While I was cleaning out my basement, I came across a copy of Photoshop 4 that I purchased (legally I hope!) from a student bookstore when I attended college. I felt kind of lucky because I had been mulling over the idea of actually purchasing Photoshop for casual image editing at home (I would have gotten Elements).

I tried to install it on a Windows XP virtual machine I keep around for work purposes. No dice--Photoshop thought it didn't have enough memory.

I descended back into my basement to find the Windows 2000 disk I knew was down there. I figured w2k would be a more willing host given that it came from the same era. Hmm, CD case (with key!) but no disc! Thirty minutes later, after grabbing a backup (via bittorrent) I was in business. It took all of 10 minutes to create a VM and install w2k.

I then proceeded to install Photoshop. First, I was impressed at how fast CD-ROM drives have become. What would have been a 5-10 minute installation process back in 1997 took less than a minute. But the real surprise, the kicker, was how fast Photoshop 4 started on a virtualized w2k install.

About a second. I am not making this up. I quit photoshop and started it again. This time it appeared almost instantly.

"Niiiiiiiiice!" was my thought.

We hem and haw about how fast technology progresses and how far we come each year. But as I sit here using software I bought 11 years ago, realizing how it was more than adequate back then and that it does 90% of everything I need today I have to ask myself, "how far have we really come?"