The ideas behind Doom didn't become feasible until consumers had fast enough machines. A slightly different example comes from the World Wide Web. WWW stuff really doesn't work at all below 14. 4 and doesn't come into its own until you reach 28.8. This whole issue of speed brings up a hidden gotcha in interactive design. So the software developer creates an interface design that works fine on his own machine and then is surprised when consumers complain that it's slow or clumsy.
Any time there's a delay in responding to the user, the user's mind starts turning over.
Perhaps I should abort this operation and try something else. If the user acts on these impulses, the flow of the interaction is disturbed and the user interface breaks down. It's not just slower, it's broken. I leave you with a particularly horrifying possibility. Imagine what happens if the delay between the first message and the second message is more than a few seconds.