I remember when 128mb of RAM was considered great....

[Rick]

Remember the days?

This is a beautiful example of this was when my computer was performing so badly! I didn't know what was causing it and I kept thinking, "Jesus man! I'm going to have to defrag!". I couldn't bare how slow everything felt to me and loathed every moment I did something memory intensive. I had no idea that I was "only" using 256mb instead of my usual 512mb.

Once I figured out the problem and fixed it, I was happy once again.

It goes to show you though... "Rediculous" amounts of memory are becoming pretty standard these days.

It wasn't too long ago 64.. 32.. Even 16 was considered really good. I remember something I read a few years ago that touted 128mb as an absolute waste of money... I wouldn't even use twice that.

 

[Phantasm66]

Dude I remember when 4 MB was kicking booty!

I had 1 MB of RAM and a friend had 2 MB. I upgraded to 4 MB and he was dumbfounded!

We laughed at how fast the machine ran.

We made jokes about how he had better try and treat it for its new steroid addiction.

I also remember upgrading to 8 MB and thinking "Now I really AM a power user!!!"

I remember buying a new motherboard and chip and 16 MB EDO RAM was all I could afford to put on it, but at that time it was enough. More than enough under certain conditions. I completed Tomb Raider 1 for the PC with just 16 MB in there.

Its just the way things develop. I am building another machine and I need 256 MB DDR-SDRAM from somewhere. I was gonna take 256 MB from my main machine (leaving 256 MB) and I thought - no way! And promptly bought another 256 MB DDR-SDRAM module anyway.

My God, even the notion that 256 MB comes on a single module these days is pretty scarey!

 

[Didou]

The first PC I got that was really for me had 16mb ram, a 2mb Integrated Cirrus Logic & a 1.2 GB Western Digital. It was considered High End at the time. A few weeks later I had friends bragging about having 64mb of Ram. I though that was simply ridiculous. I kept thinking : "What possible use could you have for 64mb ?".

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I wonder what's the real reason for this. Can't programmers use the memory effectively anymore? Do people just take the memory consumption for granted? Are today's applications/operating systems too bloated? It's still the same 32-bit code that it was a couple of years ago, it shouldn't take more space now than it did before. Less, actually, after all, aren't compilers better now?

 

[Vehementi]

Aren't there 1 GB sticks out there today??

Back I was a youngin my dad bought a dream machine - it was an Apple LC-somethin or other. It had 16 MB. Up until about 4 years ago we had that as our primary computer. It was bought about 11 years ago...Then it was replaced, by another Mac.
7 years later, guess how much RAM it had?

32 MB.

Right now I'm considering buying a 512 MB stick (DDR) for my present computer to add on to the 256 I have now.

Crazy, eh?

 

[JAV]

A little rant

Those were the days. Wasn't all that long ago either. My 486SX33 w/8mb RAM was a screamer. It ran Win 3.11 & DOS like it was meant to.

Then ole Billy Boy Gates decided to 'improve' Windows. Had to have 16mb to run it. Then 32, then 64 & now XP gobbles up 128mb like a kid eating a candy bar. Where is DOS? Buried.

<RANT mode on>

We consumers lay down our hard earned $$$ for machines & we're told they are 'state of the art' & are 'plug & play' & 'backwards compatible'. BS! No sooner do we get them home & something 'better' comes out that WON'T work on the 'new' machine we just got!

Seems consumers are getting used to the (designed that way)fact that something a year old is obsolete & 'new' *must* be purchased. The year old still works, there just isn't anything 'new' it works with!

I see this mentality seeping into other aspects of our lives. Look at automobiles. Parts for 3-4-5 yr old cars are dealer items, take forever to get & cost a fortune because they are no longer in production. Wasn't that way 10+ years ago, but it is now.

Unless we consumers put our foot down & *demand* backwards compatibility, w/o 'uprgrading', it won't stop & will get much worse, IMO. It's taking 171mb of memory just to write this. That is ridiculous! This 2yr old internet/gaming computer had 64mb 'stock', cost ~$1000 & has 'needed' a 256mb upgrade & a new video card. That's like putting a new transmission in a 2yr old car w/o a warranty! [It also could use a new CPU = engine]

Shame we have to use the Courts to address these issues (& a bigger shame the Co.'s can drag it thru Court for yrs), but I think it's time we do! Be nice if we could establish a 'fair trade-in value' for computers & *force* the mfg's to take them back. Maybe when mfg's have warehouses full of 'obsolete' machines (instead of us consumers) then they'll get the picture & stop their BS (lying) to us at time of purchase & start making 'true' backwards compatibility components & programs.

We are being 'taken' & it really does **** me off. Glad I finally got this off my chest & I really hope I'm not alone on my thoughts.

<RANT over>

Thanks for 'listening',

 

[Vehementi]

You're not alone in any way JAV. I agree wholeheartedly with every word

You may have been exaggerating a tad, but I still agree

 

[StormBringer]

Well, sonny back in the day...

Actually, I can remember back when I got my second PC, my first was a C-64, my second was a Tandy, it had 640K of RAM and no HDD, just two Floppy drives. It had a 12MHz CPU. At that time, we were being told that 640K was more than anyone would ever need in a personal computer. Here we are today telling people that the recommended 128MB for XP isn't really enough to run it properly, not to mention all the games and graphics apps which require a great deal of that precious memory. I have 1536MB DDR and I would imagine that the next machine I build will probably have twice that. In less than a year we will probably be recommending that you have at least half of that. Can you imagine 768MB being a minimum requirement, I remember thinking that 32MB was a rediculous requirement. I really didn't think much about it before that.

 

[MYOB]

I was running XP on 64Mb a while back (waiting to replce PSU on REAL system, using backup one), and I was amazed at how slow it was. Installers that worked fine on the same system wouldn't reach 1% before crashing. the Laptop i'm using to write this is takng up more memory to run IE than its predesscor thad in total!!

Its ridiculous. IOf I have to buy anymore Ram to run XPSE in two yeasr time, i'll go and sulk in the corner with Linux on a386 instead (yes, I have access to a working 386, still! And a 286. and a ps/2. all in my schools 'IT Lab'!!)

 

[walleys]

My first Wintel box was a 486SX with 4 MB of RAM. I remember saving to uprade that to 8 MB (2 more 2 MB strips, remember pairs?) I was overjoyed with the performance. Now I wouldn't consider pressing the power on button with anything less than 256 MB...and on one strip! But I can't really complain much about the need for more RAM to run today's OS', apps and games when you consider that compared to 1994's prices, RAM today is a bargain. That extra 4 MB back in 94 really set me back.

 

[Tedman]

Heh I remember when 16mb Video Cards were great. And there were cards that costed $149 for 8mb of video memory. I doubt any of those cards can compare to any of the new 128mb video cards nowadays.

 

[StormBringer]

Originally posted by Tedman
Heh I remember when 16mb Video Cards were great. And there were cards that costed $149 for 8mb of video memory. I doubt any of those cards can compare to any of the new 128mb video cards nowadays.

I have several 2MB video cards lying around, I remember the first one I bought...I was the envy of all my friends, until one of them got a 4MB card before I did.

 

[walleys]

Yeah, but if I have a 4 MB video card laying around, I can find a use for it. An emergency replacement or a great card for my daughters simple set up. What can I do with all my old 2 MB strips in my hardware cabinet???

 

[StormBringer]

Originally posted by walleys
Yeah, but if I have a 4 MB video card laying around, I can find a use for it. An emergency replacement or a great card for my daughters simple set up. What can I do with all my old 2 MB strips in my hardware cabinet???

You could give them to me...that stuff is getting hard to find. Not many people even know what it looks like but a few of us never get rid of anything so we still have a use for it.

 

[lokem]

Originally posted by StormBringer You could give them to me...that stuff is getting hard to find. Not many people even know what it looks like but a few of us never get rid of anything so we still have a use for it.

Or you could sell them to NASA; they're looking for old spare parts

I still remember longing to have Expanded memory to play Wing Commander so that I can see the pilot's hand on the joystick.... Gahh

 

[SNGX1275]

I've just recently picked up for free an ATI 4Meg card, not even sure what it is cause I haven't used it.
I remember my dad using a Commodore 64 and some old Okadata Dot Matrix Printer to print off word processing documents he'd type on the Commodore 64. He used the thing for work, I just used it for gaming. Then the next computer we got was a Macintosh SE/30 which came with a whopping 1Meg of RAM (the SE/30 I believe was either the first of one of the first Macintosh computers that read HD floppies). We later Upgraded to 5Megs of RAM. I don't remember the price but I remember it was very expensive.
And the computer I took to college had 48Megs of RAM. Now the one I have (and I'm still in college - although now 5th year ) has 512.

 

[MYOB]

The system I'm using now still has a clunky 16Mb Graphics card. It had a 4Mb unitl three months ago!

My 384MB ram set me back the princley sum of IR£44 (€56)

that was at its lowest price. But then again, it is 66% of the price of my proccessor!!