If someone (you?) has written up how to recreate this experience, please share it.
I know that there are scheduling options in Linux to improve latency. I know that some keyboard brands respond faster than others. A subset of these will have pleasing mechanical keys. A good display is obviously a must, but do they too suffer from having a wife range of performance problems?
It’s not that foreign to experience things like this. Just flip a switch with an LED or Incandescent bulb - notice how instantaneous it reacts to the switch action. Then do the same with fluorescent bulb with a ballast.
The world is full of instantly reacting stuff. From writing to playing ping pong, we expect a certain amount of latency and no more. That’s why soft suspension cars are not fun (even if their performance was great, it’s not) because so much of driving pleasure comes from the tactility and Human-to-Machine interaction - basically brain seeks faster feedback so the control loop is tight.
> "That’s why soft suspension cars are not fun (even if their performance was great, it’s not) because so much of driving pleasure comes from the tactility and Human-to-Machine interaction - basically brain seeks faster feedback so the control loop is tight."
As with anything in the physical world, it is a lot more complicated than that :-)
I know most people and certainly most car enthusiasts think you need stiff suspension and wide low-profile tires to have the most fun driving, but that's not necessarily true.
For the fastest times around a track, you obviously need as much grip as you can possibly get, and you can run very very stiff suspension because of the flat and even surface. You probably also want a dual-clutch or F1-style automated gearbox and an intelligent AWD system with complex driver aids, like in the Nissan GT-R.
However based on my experience, if you're looking for the most fun driving experience, and not just the best numbers on a score sheet, you need to go in a different direction.
What you want is a lightweight car on relatively skinny tires with a decent amount of sidewall, and most importantly a suspension with long travel, softly sprung and stiffly damped. That's the Colin Chapman (of Lotus fame) British sports car approach, which is perfect for real world fun, chucking a nimble and communicative car around empty B-roads in the countryside.
The reason for not choosing super wide low-profile tires is that having more sidewall in relation to width lets the tire flex more on the wheel, which lets the entire chassis communicate more. It's true that a low-profile tire will feel more "snappy" or "crisp" and have a higher absolute limit of grip, but it also gives you much less warning when you're approaching the limit than a skinnier and taller tire would. Decreasing the absolute limit of grip and making the margin of error wider lets you play around more, making it easier to get that extremely satisfying four-wheel drift around a fast sweeping corner.
By making the car less sharp and crisp, but more communicative, you increase the tactility and driver involvement. It's the difference between grip and handling. A grippy car with just grip and grip and grip, but a car with good handling will tell you what's going on and involve you in the process.
All of this is why Toyota/Subaru specified relatively narrow and completely ordinary road tires (Michelin Primacy IIRC) for the GT-86/BRZ sports car, because it's more fun, more of the time.
If you want to recreate this experience in the most authentic way possible, you can buy a video terminal and configure your box to host the terminal on one of its serial ports.
I picked up a couple working IBM 3151 video terminals and keyboards on a government auction site for $25. On eBay, video terminals tend to be more expensive.
I'm especially happy with the IBM 3151 because the keyboard is buckling-spring just like the Model M.
I know that there are scheduling options in Linux to improve latency. I know that some keyboard brands respond faster than others. A subset of these will have pleasing mechanical keys. A good display is obviously a must, but do they too suffer from having a wife range of performance problems?
It would be gratefully received.