I need to change that damn waving flag on the right hand side, and “Yes”, it is a real-time physics demo using spring tensors, drag and derived wind coefficients and it eats up all available CPU power. And freezes older versions of Netscape running on Linux so at least it’s good for something then. Back when I wrote it in the dim and distant days of January/February 1996 it was all about speed, Java JIT compilers had only just begun to appear so it ran “slower than molasses in January” as one witty American observer pointed out. I also note it runs way too fast on an AMD processor. I should optimise the renderer to use the newer graphics API available and put in proper frame synchronised timed delay loops. So much for planning for the future. Hey! I’m a console games programmer, not an applications programmer, I don’t program for tomorrow, I program for the machine that isn’t going to change it’s specifications in the next five years.

— Justin Lloyd

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