Re: the cost of memory Message #2 Posted by bill platt on 14 Aug 2009, 11:02 p.m., in response to message #1 by juan demin
Even in 1995, memory was very expensive. I spent over $150 to upgrade my 486 back then. I think I ended up with 16MB instead of 4MB.
You are correct about the importance of memory. Computing cost--and memory is a distinct significant part of that--has fallen dramatically--and was very high initially.
Of course everything was about economy of memory, or utilizing every last drop of horsepower. We really didn't have a choice.
Today's computing is a whole different ethos. There is now excess horsepower. How many watts do we just fritter away idling, or simply typing into a browser window? Calculators of the 1970s used much more of their capacity for utility on average versus modern computers, which mostly just use power for "OVERHEAD."
The consumer and small-business machines of today are similar to the automobiles of the late 1930s--huge, inefficient, powerful, imaginative, beastly dinosaurs which are merely an awkward developmental stage.
In the future, we will have much more elegant machines which do not need to "boot up" for 5 minutes, do not need to idle, do not consume 300 watts doing absolutely nothing. We will have efficient, flexible, reactive machines which handle swiftly, smoothly etc.
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