* * * * *
                                        
     640G … we're up to 640G, right? That should finally be enough, right?
                                        
> What I am suggesting is that disks came about because of limited RAM
> (Random Access Memory). Now that RAM limitations can be of increasing
> greater size, we should explore new freedoms. What follows may seem a
> little far-fetched, but may also be just around the corner.
> 
> First, we may take it that a one megabyte RAM is not likely to be filled
> with a BASIC or machine code program of anything near that length. The
> debugging alone would take too long! This leaves us with other
> possibilities.
> 
> We could fill a lot of the RAM with a wide range of programs, and call up
> any of the whole suite, instantaneously, from a special menu program.
> 
> We could have as many programming aids in our machine as we could
> conceivably wish for, and barely scratch the surface of our new-found
> capacity.
> 
> We could have a vast range of help screens available for instantaneous
> recall when in trouble.
> 
> We could call in a whole succession of high resolution pictures, which are
> usually slow to load from disk, so rapidly that even animation would be
> possible.
> 
> We could have split processing in one machine. After all, it is common for
> two processors to be in one machine, so why not a schizoid machine with
> each part operating independently?
> 
> We could have a really enormous amount of text in our word processor at any
> one time, and have many different text areas. Our word processor could
> perhaps interact with our accounting and data base programs in RAM.
> 
> Accounting suites of programs could be truly integrated, so that final
> accounts are updated after every transaction.
> 

Via Flutterby [1], “Guest Commentary: Is RAM Memory A Status Symbol? [2]”

Hmm … sounds a lot like Microsoft Windows.

Or a smart phone for that matter.

I should note that this was written in 1983, when 512K (Kilobytes) went for
$550.00 (cheapest price I could find— today that would be anywhere from
$1,080.00 to $2,350.00 [3], depending on how you calculate inflation) and
there were no personal computers that could hold more than a megabyte of
memory (which would shortly change over the next few years).

Oh, and this comment from Flutterby is priceless:

> With modern machines having gigabytes of RAM, one can only assume that
> debugging has been completely abandoned … and assumption that gets
> validated every time Scrabble crashes on my Android phone.
> 

“Comm ent [4]”

[1] http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/17012.html
[2] http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue36/110_Guest_Commentary_Is_R
[3] http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/result.php?year_source=1983&amp
[4] http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/17012.html#artid_54508

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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