And lo on Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:32:32 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>> >   OTOH Monopoly laws of most countries would luckily prevent that.
>
>> Why? If that's how it's sold then what would be the problem legally?  
>> Even
>> if you're talking some sort of perfect system that would prevent another
>> OS to be run regardless of how either the replacement OS or the system  
>> was
>> altered I don't see any legal reason against it.
>
>   Monopoly laws in most countries have been created precisely to prevent
> that.
>
>   Sure, Apple owns its own product, the iPod, and Apple sells songs for
> their own product, the iPod. Naturally Apple has all the right to make
> their own product to play only the songs sold by Apple? Makes sense.
>
>   Well, no. Apple has had problems with EU monopoly laws because of that.
> They must allow songs by others to be played with the iPod.

iPod's weren't sold with "only plays songs bought from the Apple store"  
written across them. People expected to be able to play their own music  
and got into a snit when they couldn't.

>   And besides, haven't you heard of the IE lawsuits MS had to endure?
> Monopoly laws in action.

Yes but in that case MS weren't preventing other browsers they were taking  
advantage of a dominance in one field to advance in another and shutting  
out the competition.

 From both these examples I don't see a connection with a one OS only PC.  
Why aren't Nokia being sued like Apple because I can't install the Sony  
Ericsson menu system on my mobile phone?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:39:53 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   Isn't it a bit ironic that each new version of Windows adds more
>   things
> the user can *not* do, instead of the opposite?

It is, but AIUI, the original concept was that the system should be open 
by default (I understand that was a design requirement that Gates put in 
place).  Then they discovered that a default "allow" security policy was 
bad, so they started retrofitting.

The thing that I find somewhat ironic is that piracy (which I don't 
condone) is part of the reason that Windows is predominant on the desktop 
these days.  It's far from the only reason, but people wanted Windows but 
didn't want to pay for it, so they borrowed copies of it back in the days 
when DOS shipped with machines and pre-installation was something that 
was generally not done.

MS' answer to that growth is to make it more difficult to pirate.  I 
think it would be interesting if they made Windows *free* (as in 0 cost 
to the consumer) and allowed it to be copied.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:42:15 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> I wonder when they'll start preventing you from removing Windoze?

I don't think the US DOJ or the EU commission would consider that 
appropriate under the current "agreements" in place due to the antitrust 
litigation.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Isn't it a bit ironic that each new version of Windows adds more things
> the user can *not* do, instead of the opposite?

Kind of sucks when the customer isn't always the user, doesn't it? :-)

>   In theory it could be possible to tie hardware with a specific OS.

We have that. They're called cell phones. Or microwave ovens. Or iPhones.


Invisible wrote:
 > How about if you design hardware so that it will only run "authorised"
 > software

Yeah. This is the iPhone, and Apple is slowly moving the rest of their 
OS that direction.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

In article <486b862e@news.povray.org>, war### [at] tagpovrayorg says...
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > I wonder when they'll start preventing you from removing Windoze?
> 
> > (Already I see M$ saying things to hardware vendors like "don't expose
 
> > your customers to the dangers of software piracy by selling them PCs 
> > without Windoze preinstalled". Nice mentallity, eh?)
> 
>   In theory it could be possible to tie hardware with a specific OS.
> It may be possible to build a PC which only runs Vista, period.
> 
>   OTOH Monopoly laws of most countries would luckily prevent that.
> 
What? You mean they are not already basically doing that with DirectX 
10? lol Seriously though, they are already making the hardware so its 
hard, or nearly impossible, to take full advantage of it (or work at 
all) without Windows. Putting a chip on the MB the way Apple initially 
did, so that only their OS would run on their boards, isn't that far of 
a stretch.

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Phil Cook wrote:
>  From both these examples I don't see a connection with a one OS only 
> PC. Why aren't Nokia being sued like Apple because I can't install the 
> Sony Ericsson menu system on my mobile phone?

In that instance, it's because Sony Ericsson isn't making their menu 
system for Nokia phones, and Nokia isn't actively adding features to 
prevent them from doing so.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> MS' answer to that growth is to make it more difficult to pirate.  I 
> think it would be interesting if they made Windows *free* (as in 0 cost 
> to the consumer) and allowed it to be copied.

They would lose their biggest single source of revenue, and with it the 
incentive to develop it further.

Think Windows Vista is bad now?  Imagine how bad things would be 10 
years from now, if MS's development budget were slashed in half.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:59:20 -0700, Chambers wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> MS' answer to that growth is to make it more difficult to pirate.  I
>> think it would be interesting if they made Windows *free* (as in 0 cost
>> to the consumer) and allowed it to be copied.
> 
> They would lose their biggest single source of revenue, and with it the
> incentive to develop it further.

I think the combined revenue for their applications probably either is 
(or could be) their largest source of revenue.

> Think Windows Vista is bad now?  Imagine how bad things would be 10
> years from now, if MS's development budget were slashed in half.

Depends on how they structure the business.  If the apps fed into the OS 
development stream and the apps were successful enough, then it could be 
self-reinforcing.

And it's hard for me to believe I'm saying this, since I advocate(d) 
breaking MS up and splitting the OS and apps into two separate entities.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> I think the combined revenue for their applications probably either is 
> (or could be) their largest source of revenue.

IIRC, Windows and Office are (respectively) their #1 and #2 earners. 
Everything else pales in comparison.  Their most successful products 
outside of these two make nowhere near as much money for them.

Of course, that was a few years ago, and things could have changed.

>> Think Windows Vista is bad now?  Imagine how bad things would be 10
>> years from now, if MS's development budget were slashed in half.
> 
> Depends on how they structure the business.  If the apps fed into the OS 
> development stream and the apps were successful enough, then it could be 
> self-reinforcing.

Yeah, but they wouldn't get paid for the OS, only for the Apps, so 
there's the temptation to focus on the apps and not the OS.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:56:09 +0100, Chambers  
<ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>>  From both these examples I don't see a connection with a one OS only  
>> PC. Why aren't Nokia being sued like Apple because I can't install the  
>> Sony Ericsson menu system on my mobile phone?
>
> In that instance, it's because Sony Ericsson isn't making their menu  
> system for Nokia phones, and Nokia isn't actively adding features to  
> prevent them from doing so.

But Apple just aren't making their phones to accept non-Apple bought music  
what's the difference?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

Phil Cook wrote:
> But Apple just aren't making their phones to accept non-Apple bought 
> music what's the difference?
> 

Personally, I see none.  So I don't know.

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:00:55 -0700, Chambers wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I think the combined revenue for their applications probably either is
>> (or could be) their largest source of revenue.
> 
> IIRC, Windows and Office are (respectively) their #1 and #2 earners.
> Everything else pales in comparison.  Their most successful products
> outside of these two make nowhere near as much money for them.
> 
> Of course, that was a few years ago, and things could have changed.

Possibly.  I know MOM is frightfully expensive (at least in large 
implementations) and at least when I was working with AD in a large 
environment, we were told it was absolutely necessary in spite of the 7-
figure price tag.

>>> Think Windows Vista is bad now?  Imagine how bad things would be 10
>>> years from now, if MS's development budget were slashed in half.
>> 
>> Depends on how they structure the business.  If the apps fed into the
>> OS development stream and the apps were successful enough, then it
>> could be self-reinforcing.
> 
> Yeah, but they wouldn't get paid for the OS, only for the Apps, so
> there's the temptation to focus on the apps and not the OS.

Depends on how the revenue was structured and fed back.  The part of my 
company I work for, we are a cost center - we get almost all of our 
funding from the product teams.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> Phil Cook wrote:
>> But Apple just aren't making their phones to accept non-Apple bought 
>> music what's the difference?
>>
> 
> Personally, I see none.  So I don't know.
> 
> ...Chambers

The difference is the general view of a 'computer' versus that of a 
music device. A MP3 player that can only play certain MP3s is a waste of 
money to some people, but a computing device that only runs one OS is 
the norm. How many people out there even realize that they don't need a 
special computer to run Linux, that Windows is not the computer?

Cell phone contracts are pretty clear, the phone only runs programs they 
allow and only has access to certain networks. No average person 
purchasing one would expect it to run home made software and still work. 
Game consoles are another similar set up, they run only the software 
provided by the company. They occasionally send out patches that brick a 
device that is running unauthorized code. All pretty much out in the 
open, as they say you can only use their network and new 'upgrades' as 
long as you do not modify the device.

Apple just made the mistake of calling the ipod an mp3 player instead of 
a 'personal media device' or something.

Post a reply to this message

Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> Apple just made the mistake of calling the ipod an mp3 player instead of 
> a 'personal media device' or something.

Speaking of which, I saw in the bookstore a "iPods for dummies" book, 
including a tear-out page of shortcuts you can "store with your 
retracted headphones."  How loser do you need to be before you pay $15 
for a crib-sheet for an iPod? :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at vtSPAM.edu"> wrote:
> Apple just made the mistake of calling the ipod an mp3 player instead of
> a 'personal media device' or something.

On the subject of licensed software and the tight grip the license holders have
on them, I wish ATRAC were an open standard and prevalent instead of MP3. It's
a much better algortihm, but Sony wants to keep it all to itself.

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

I would like to love Vista. It has new features I like: the basic UI is
improved, account management is a lot more streamlined, the organization of
system/user files and folders is better IMO. But, it is slow and hangs or
crashes apps way too frequently. Also, I have the Vista UI on my XP machine
right now as a result of amateur conversions and 'skins'.

-Mike

Post a reply to this message

> I would like to love Vista. It has new features I like: the basic UI is
> improved, account management is a lot more streamlined, the organization 
> of
> system/user files and folders is better IMO. But, it is slow and hangs or
> crashes apps way too frequently. Also, I have the Vista UI on my XP 
> machine
> right now as a result of amateur conversions and 'skins'.

So long as you have enough RAM, Vista seems quicker than XP.  Certinly here 
at work, apps that used to take up to a minute to boot up now take *way* 
less (like under 10 seconds most times).  Definitely an improvement for me.

But, I installed Vista on my home PC (only 1 gig RAM) and it was slow.  I 
upgraded to 2GB and it's fine now.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> So long as you have enough RAM, Vista seems quicker than XP.
> I installed Vista on my home PC (only 1 gig RAM) and it was slow.  
> I upgraded to 2GB and it's fine now.

I'm just loving the concept of "only 1 GB of RAM" - as if that's a 
"small" amount or something...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:15:01 +0100, Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at  
vtSPAM.edu"> did spake, saying:

> Chambers wrote:
>> Phil Cook wrote:
>>> But Apple just aren't making their phones to accept non-Apple bought  
>>> music what's the difference?
>>>
>>  Personally, I see none.  So I don't know.
>>  ...Chambers
>
> The difference is the general view of a 'computer' versus that of a  
> music device. A MP3 player that can only play certain MP3s is a waste of  
> money to some people, but a computing device that only runs one OS is  
> the norm. How many people out there even realize that they don't need a  
> special computer to run Linux, that Windows is not the computer?
>
> Cell phone contracts are pretty clear, the phone only runs programs they  
> allow and only has access to certain networks. No average person  
> purchasing one would expect it to run home made software and still work.  
> Game consoles are another similar set up, they run only the software  
> provided by the company. They occasionally send out patches that brick a  
> device that is running unauthorized code. All pretty much out in the  
> open, as they say you can only use their network and new 'upgrades' as  
> long as you do not modify the device.
>
> Apple just made the mistake of calling the ipod an mp3 player instead of  
> a 'personal media device' or something.

Exactly it's a perceptual thing; no-one expects a PS3 to play Xbox360  
software, no-one expects a Nokia phone to run the Motorola OS. Sell a  
device that's tied to a 'genre' and everyone expects it to work with all  
cases. It's not a monopoly case that you can't run a Wii game on an Xbox  
so why is it when you can't play certain types of music on your iPod?  
Because "Apple just made the mistake of calling the ipod an mp3 player"  
should have gone for iTune music player.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

> I'm just loving the concept of "only 1 GB of RAM" - as if that's a "small" 
> amount or something...

Ermm yeh it is, even the cheapest Dell for under 300 GBP has 2GB of RAM.  My 
new desktop at work has 8GB and it's nothing special (about 900 GBP IIRC). 
And the cost for me to upgrade at home from 1GB to 2GB was a tiny fraction 
of the cost of a Vista license.  So yes, today, 1GB is a small amount.

Post a reply to this message

>> I'm just loving the concept of "only 1 GB of RAM" - as if that's a 
>> "small" amount or something...
> 
> Ermm yeh it is, even the cheapest Dell for under 300 GBP has 2GB of 
> RAM.  My new desktop at work has 8GB and it's nothing special (about 900 
> GBP IIRC). And the cost for me to upgrade at home from 1GB to 2GB was a 
> tiny fraction of the cost of a Vista license.  So yes, today, 1GB is a 
> small amount.

1. ...you mean Dell actually *sell* PCs for less than £800?

2. Last time I checked, 1 GB is about £180. That's not my idea of "cheap".

3. My motherboard (for an AMD socket-939 CPU) doesn't even *support* 
more than 4 GB of RAM.

4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway? 
(Apart from the fact that Vista wastes it all for you.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> And the cost for me to upgrade at home from 1GB to 2GB was a 
> tiny fraction of the cost of a Vista license.

5. Vista is so over-priced that I could by several entire PCs for the 
cost of a single Vista licence. :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

>   Isn't it a bit ironic that each new version of Windows adds more things
> the user can *not* do, instead of the opposite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista

Heh, just like with XP, they're reducing the amount of stuff you can 
customise. (E.g., the Explorer toolbar is no longer configurable. You 
can't remove those useless search buttons, or the back and forward 
buttons. And you can't add useful buttons like map drive.) They're also 
removing power. (E.g., you can still make Zip files, but you can no 
longer password protect them.)

I can hardly wait until the day when I'm forced to use this crap. :-(

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> 1. ...you mean Dell actually *sell* PCs for less than £800?

For 350 GBP you can get a Core2Duo 2.4GHz machine with Vista, 2GB RAM, 
320GB, ATI HD3650 3D card, DVD writer etc.

When was the last time you checked the Dell website?  Ever since I can 
remember they've always had something around the 300 pound mark.

> 2. Last time I checked, 1 GB is about £180. That's not my idea of "cheap".

When was that, 2 years ago?  Check again.

> 3. My motherboard (for an AMD socket-939 CPU) doesn't even *support* more 
> than 4 GB of RAM.

And how old is that?  !!Newsflash!! new motherboards can support more!

> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway? 
> (Apart from the fact that Vista wastes it all for you.)

Vista doesn't actually waste it, it uses it to do clever stuff to help 
things go faster.  Of course if an application really needs to use the RAM 
then Vista gives it the RAM and discards it's "cache".  What would be the 
point of having RAM sat there unused?  Anyway, personally, I need 8GB 
because I do simulations which often use over 4GB, and I'd like to have some 
spare to actually use my PC at the same time.  I don't imagine a "normal" 
user would need more than 2GB unless they were doing video editing or 
something equally memory hungry.

Post a reply to this message

>> 1. ...you mean Dell actually *sell* PCs for less than £800?
> 
> For 350 GBP you can get a Core2Duo 2.4GHz machine with Vista, 2GB RAM, 
> 320GB, ATI HD3650 3D card, DVD writer etc.
> 
> When was the last time you checked the Dell website?

Last year. And for a machine much poorer than that, they were demanding 
£1,200. Even when I stripped all the options down to the bare minimum, I 
couldn't get the price below £700.

>> 2. Last time I checked, 1 GB is about £180. That's not my idea of 
>> "cheap".
> 
> When was that, 2 years ago?  Check again.

OK, now I am puzzled. When a built a PC last Autumn, I could only afford 
0.5 GB on the budget I had. When did RAM suddenly get this cheap??

>> 3. My motherboard (for an AMD socket-939 CPU) doesn't even *support* 
>> more than 4 GB of RAM.
> 
> And how old is that?  !!Newsflash!! new motherboards can support more!

OK, I'll give you that one. It seems that if you pay for a reasonably 
expensive board, it does in fact support as much as 8 GB.

>> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway? 
>> (Apart from the fact that Vista wastes it all for you.)
> 
> Vista doesn't actually waste it, it uses it to do clever stuff to help 
> things go faster.

...which somewhat contradicts your "if you don't have enough RAM than 
Vista goes really slow".



So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
they don't cost much money?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> ...which somewhat contradicts your "if you don't have enough RAM than 
> Vista goes really slow".

Not really, IME Vista needs 2GB to fully stretch out and work smoothly as 
designed.  If you try and run it on 1GB, you'll probably be spending more 
time paging around "clever features" and "actual programs" etc than the 
benefit you get from the clever features.  Vista runs fine on 1GB, *once* 
you have your program loaded.  If you just you one program all day you'll be 
fine, but if use lots of different programs it's going to appear slow to 
you.  Anyway, all this is a pointless discussion, as I said, for a fraction 
of the price of Vista you can buy an extra 1GB.

> So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
> down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
> they don't cost much money?

Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.

IMO, if the cheapest Dell offers 2GB, then 2GB is certainly not a "vast" 
amount of RAM.

Post a reply to this message

>> So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
>> down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
>> they don't cost much money?
> 
> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.

Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of RAM, 
but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly need 2 
GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)

> IMO, if the cheapest Dell offers 2GB, then 2GB is certainly not a "vast" 
> amount of RAM.

Isn't that like saying "if the cheapest Dell offers Vista, then Vista 
isn't an overpriced OS"? ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.
>
> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of RAM, 
> but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly need 2 
> GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)

Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of game 
data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

You could use exactly the same argument 10 years ago as to why it was 
necessary to have 256MB, when everyone "got on fine" with just 32MB 
previously.  Ditto for 32MB against 640K, 640K against 32K etc.

> Isn't that like saying "if the cheapest Dell offers Vista, then Vista 
> isn't an overpriced OS"? ;-)

Of course.  I don't know if you noticed, but computers always seem to sell 
for the same price.  There's always cheap ones for around 400 pounds, and 
then the expensive ones around 800-1000 pounds (ok then really expensive 
ones for more).  But the fact is, the prices don't go down, the specs go up. 
If Vista is shipping on the cheapest PCs, then it can't be that overpriced.

Post a reply to this message

>> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of 
>> RAM, but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly 
>> need 2 GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)
> 
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of 
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

Only the last two there actually require any more RAM. The others just 
eat your harddrive faster.

(As an aside... Are you serious? Are there really 10 megapixel cameras 
now? Last time I looked, 7 was about the biggest you could get. I mean, 
unless you pay silly money, obviously.)

> I don't know if you noticed, but computers always seem to 
> sell for the same price.

Not actually true. The first PC my mum bought was £2,000, and it was 
basically the cheapest thing in the shop.

> But the fact is, the prices don't go down, the specs go up.

Now that I can agree to.

> If Vista is shipping on the cheapest PCs, then it 
> can't be that overpriced.

I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on it 
is priced at basically £400. My entire PC cost me £500 when I built it. 
  So that's 80% of the cost of the hardware. You can build a cheap PC 
for about £100. So that's roughly 4 entire PCs. Sounds pretty darn 
expensive to me...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:24:30 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did  
spake, saying:

>>> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.
>>
>> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of  
>> RAM, but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly  
>> need 2 GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)
>
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that  
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating  
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of  
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of  
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.
>
> You could use exactly the same argument 10 years ago as to why it was  
> necessary to have 256MB, when everyone "got on fine" with just 32MB  
> previously.  Ditto for 32MB against 640K, 640K against 32K etc.

No the comparision here appears to be -

OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM

It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need to  
double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your previous  
OS?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

>> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
>> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
>> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of game 
>> data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
>> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.
>
> Only the last two there actually require any more RAM. The others just eat 
> your harddrive faster.

Have you tried editing a 10MP photo?  10e6*3bytes = 30 MB, times several 
layers and undo levels easily exceeds 256 MB.

Have you tried editing a full-HD video clip using your PC?  Believe me, it 
eats RAM, which is traditionally why the "video editing" PCs have been high 
spec with lots of RAM.

> (As an aside... Are you serious? Are there really 10 megapixel cameras 
> now? Last time I looked, 7 was about the biggest you could get. I mean, 
> unless you pay silly money, obviously.)

Yawn!  Check amazon!  Loads priced between 100 and 200 pounds with 10MP.

> Not actually true. The first PC my mum bought was £2,000, and it was 
> basically the cheapest thing in the shop.

While that may be true, I highly doubt that a PC would not have been 
available at the time for under 1000 pounds.  WHen was it and what spec?  We 
bought a P166 32MB in 1996 (IIRC), it cost something like 800 pounds and 
certainly wasn't the cheapest one available.

> I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on it is 
> priced at basically £400.

Where the hell are you looking?  On amazon they have the 
all-singing-all-dancing full Ultimate edition for 217.98.  The home-premium 
edition is 147.48.  If you want to upgrade, it's 68.98 for the home version, 
and if you want the OEM version (basically tied to that PC) then you can 
half those prices.

Of course, a company like Dell who buys in bulk will get it a lot cheaper, 
assume they pay around half price, so that's 30 quid instead of 60 for home 
premium.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> Have you tried editing a 10MP photo?

Nope. And neither has anybody else I've ever met. Generally it's a case 
of "here's a photo, can you clip the edges to center his head? OK, now 
print that 3 times." Requires almost no RAM at all.

> Have you tried editing a full-HD video clip using your PC?

1. Where in the name of God are you going to get HD video data from?

2. Assuming you edit something, where are you going to play it? Nothing 
supports it yet.

3. Why would you need lots of RAM? Surely you just need a huge harddrive?

>> Not actually true. The first PC my mum bought was £2,000, and it was 
>> basically the cheapest thing in the shop.
> 
> While that may be true, I highly doubt that a PC would not have been 
> available at the time for under 1000 pounds.  WHen was it and what 
> spec?  We bought a P166 32MB in 1996 (IIRC), it cost something like 800 
> pounds and certainly wasn't the cheapest one available.

IIRC, it was about 1994. Back in those days, having a "home computer" 
was considered somewhat unusual. I don't recall what spec; I think it 
had 8 MB RAM and a 66 MHz CPU of some kind. Short of going back in time, 
that's all I can tell you.

>> I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on 
>> it is priced at basically £400.
> 
> Where the hell are you looking?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119995

Found it on their front page.

> Of course, a company like Dell who buys in bulk will get it a lot 
> cheaper.

Probably.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> Nope. And neither has anybody else I've ever met. Generally it's a case of 
> "here's a photo, can you clip the edges to center his head? OK, now print 
> that 3 times." Requires almost no RAM at all.

Agreed.  But if you only have "almost no RAM at all", eg 256MB, then it can 
quickly become a problem.  A few levels of undo and your harddrive is 
thrashing.

> 1. Where in the name of God are you going to get HD video data from?

A camcorder?  People often take them on holiday and stuff, I'm sure you've 
seen them.  Again, look on Amazon under High Definition camcorders, prices 
range from 150 pounds upwards.  Or for geeks, maybe we create animations 
using POV :-)

> 2. Assuming you edit something, where are you going to play it? Nothing 
> supports it yet.

Ermm, you looked in a shop that sells TVs recently?  Almost all support 
HDTV, when you need to replace your TV you're not going to have a choice.  A 
quick Google revealed that in 2006 8% of homes had an HD-capable TV, that is 
predicted to reach 70% by 2012 (guess it's at about 30% now then), so it 
looks to me like lots of people have support for it already.

> 3. Why would you need lots of RAM? Surely you just need a huge harddrive?

Editing programs use up as much of your RAM as they can to make everything 
faster while you are working.  Of course you can get away with less, but 
things go really slowly with your drive thrashing away.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs/

They recommend you get the extra GB if you're planning to do HD editing.

> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119995
>
> Found it on their front page.

Hmm, on amazon it seems to be half the price:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-Vista-Ultimate-Service-Pack/dp/B0013O77GM

Post a reply to this message

> OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
> new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM
>
> It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need to 
> double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your previous 
> OS?

Because Vista was designed for new computers?  I guess MS saw it as a waste 
of money optimising it for older machines.

Post a reply to this message

>> Nope. And neither has anybody else I've ever met. Generally it's a 
>> case of "here's a photo, can you clip the edges to center his head? 
>> OK, now print that 3 times." Requires almost no RAM at all.
> 
> Agreed.  But if you only have "almost no RAM at all", eg 256MB, then it 
> can quickly become a problem.  A few levels of undo and your harddrive 
> is thrashing.

Maybe I've missed something, but what image editing software gives you 
more than 1 level of undo?

I mean, I'm sure if you're a professional digital artist, you've going 
to have some serious high-end software, and some spine-tinglingly 
expensive hardware to go with it. But normal people? They're just going 
to use the free Hyper Painter XL that comes with your camera...

>> 1. Where in the name of God are you going to get HD video data from?
> 
> A camcorder?  People often take them on holiday and stuff, I'm sure 
> you've seen them.  Again, look on Amazon under High Definition 
> camcorders, prices range from 150 pounds upwards.

I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And it 
was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. (So I'm told anyway. It 
was a gift, so I didn't actually pay for it.) The idea that you could 
buy something capable of taking half-decent video for less than £800 
seems really far-fetched to me.

> Or for geeks, maybe we create animations using POV :-)

And why do you think I own a DVD burner? ;-)

BTW, any ideas about *good* DVD authoring software? My drive came with 
some freebie that works, but it doesn't work fantastically well...

>> 2. Assuming you edit something, where are you going to play it? 
>> Nothing supports it yet.
> 
> Ermm, you looked in a shop that sells TVs recently?  Almost all support 
> HDTV, when you need to replace your TV you're not going to have a 
> choice.

Indeed. And all cost at least £900. Who has that kind of money? 
Seriously, you're not going to throw away a perfectly good TV just so 
that you can get a marginally-sharper picture, are you.

> A quick Google revealed that in 2006 8% of homes had an 
> HD-capable TV.

That's a really tiny percentage.

And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour 
£800 or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)

>> 3. Why would you need lots of RAM? Surely you just need a huge harddrive?
> 
> Editing programs use up as much of your RAM as they can to make 
> everything faster while you are working.  Of course you can get away 
> with less, but things go really slowly with your drive thrashing away.

This suggests to me that you only need large stacks of RAM if you're 
doing professional video editing work. I mean seriously, I don't even 
*know* anybody else rich enough to afford a video camera, much less 
technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond what you can 
do with a DVD recorder...

>> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119995
>>
>> Found it on their front page.
> 
> Hmm, on amazon it seems to be half the price:
> 
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-Vista-Ultimate-Service-Pack/dp/B0013O77GM

OK, well that's a little less extortionate, but it's still pretty damned 
expensive IMHO.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
48732ac7$1@news.povray.org...

> 1. ...you mean Dell actually *sell* PCs for less than £800?

I just bought from Dell a laptop (dual-core) and a desktop (quad) for 700 
and 800 euros respectively (£550 and $650). Both machines have 4 Gb RAM. The 
laptop has a 250 Gb HD and the desktop a 750 Mb HD and a 20 inch screen.

The trick with Dell is that there's always some "special deals" available 
and if you're already a client they bombard you with discount vouchers and 
such. Also, it's sometimes possible to buy at discount or even bulk prices 
(down to 40% off), when one belongs to an organisation that is in 
partnership with Dell.

> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway?

Unless one works exclusively with text-based applications, there's *** never 
*** enough RAM. Others have mentioned it already, but even cheap cameras and 
camcorder can now generate massive amounts of data and one needs a lot of 
RAM to handle this smoothly. Particularly, non-geek family members can be 
extremely Gigabytes-hungry once they figured out that one can take 
great-looking movies of everything that moves ("no, you can't attach 15 Gb = 
90 min of high-def wailing baby movie to your email and send it to all your 
friends")...

But even for non-graphic, professional applications, there's never enough 
RAM anyway: the more you have, the more you will be tempted to use and will 
end up using: Law of the Constantly Maxed Out Resources.

G.

Post a reply to this message

>> OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
>> new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM
>>
>> It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need 
>> to double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your 
>> previous OS?
> 
> Because Vista was designed for new computers?  I guess MS saw it as a 
> waste of money optimising it for older machines.

Getting an OS to work with less than a small star system's worth of RAM 
doesn't requite "optimising", it requires basic design principles.

But then, Vista isn't really an OS, is it? It's an OS plus a huge stack 
of other bits and pieces. I understand that out of the box you get DVD 
authoring, a web server (!!), various online collaboration software, and 
so forth. Not to mention layer upon layer of unecessary eye candy [which 
may or may not be pretty, I don't know].

I think we can safely say that the *real* reason it demands so much 
hardware is to keep the hardware vendors (M$'s real customers) happy.

(They say this is why Windows NT displaced Netware. What sane hardware 
vendor is going to recommend a product that works on cheap hardware?)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> I just bought from Dell a laptop (dual-core) and a desktop (quad) for 700 
> and 800 euros respectively (£550 and $650). Both machines have 4 Gb RAM. The 
> laptop has a 250 Gb HD and the desktop a 750 Mb HD and a 20 inch screen.
> 
> The trick with Dell is that there's always some "special deals" available 
> and if you're already a client they bombard you with discount vouchers and 
> such. Also, it's sometimes possible to buy at discount or even bulk prices 
> (down to 40% off), when one belongs to an organisation that is in 
> partnership with Dell.

Damn. My company *is* in a partnership with Dell. We bought 12 new PCs - 
OptiPlex 755 with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz CPU, 2 GB RAM and some 
low-end Intel graphics card, and it cost something like £900 per base 
unit. What the heck do you know that I don't???

(As an aside... is there a reason why Dell is always 3x more expensive 
than, say, HP, IBM, Acer, any other company on Earth?)

> Unless one works exclusively with text-based applications, there's *** never 
> *** enough RAM.

Really? I seem to have way more than I need. It's almost never fully 
utilised, except when trying to build huge histograms. (Not a common 
activity, obviously.)

> Others have mentioned it already, but even cheap cameras and 
> camcorder can now generate massive amounts of data and one needs a lot of 
> RAM to handle this smoothly.

Well, I was editing CDs on a machine with 2 MB of RAM about 10 years 
ago... For complex video effects I guess you do need to hold quite a bit 
of data in RAM at once though.

> Particularly, non-geek family members can be 
> extremely Gigabytes-hungry once they figured out that one can take 
> great-looking movies of everything that moves ("no, you can't attach 15 Gb = 
> 90 min of high-def wailing baby movie to your email and send it to all your 
> friends")...

That's not even funny.

Sure, I can see needing huge amounts of HD space. I'm just not seeing 
much need for huge RAM. And besides, I was talking about the bare 
minimum amount of RAM required for Vista to even consider operating. 
Presumably if Vista needs 2 GB to run, if you want to edit video *as 
well* you'd need even more RAM...

(BTW... I did wonder why the hell WeV has 4x 360 GB drives. Until I 
discovered that every single one of them is full to busting with illegal 
DVDs he's downloaded. *shivers*)

> But even for non-graphic, professional applications, there's never enough 
> RAM anyway: the more you have, the more you will be tempted to use and will 
> end up using: Law of the Constantly Maxed Out Resources.

Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't 
think of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much 
memory. Playing games involves audio and video data, but I'm 
hard-pressed to think of anything else...

(Unless you're running some kind of server. Don't do that unless you 
have stacks of... well, everything really!)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> I mean, I'm sure if you're a professional digital artist, you've going to 
> have some serious high-end software, and some spine-tinglingly expensive 
> hardware to go with it. But normal people? They're just going to use the 
> free Hyper Painter XL that comes with your camera...

Even MS Paint has 10 levels of undo.  I got PSP free with some camera ages 
ago (or it's like 50 quid I think), it has configurable levels of undo, the 
default seems to be "500MB of space per open image" (I just checked, never 
changed it before).  You can configure it to a certain number of levels if 
you want to.

> I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And it 
> was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

Yawn! How old is it?  For 800 pounds today you can buy a really decent HD 
camcorder.

> BTW, any ideas about *good* DVD authoring software? My drive came with 
> some freebie that works, but it doesn't work fantastically well...

I think I used ULead DVD Movie Factory before, it worked pretty seemlessly, 
but I didn't exactly tax it, I just wanted to put a few .avis onto a proper 
DVD with a menu so a friend could watch them.  Was really quick to use, had 
some nice pre-set menu graphics to chose from, and burnt fine first time.

> Indeed. And all cost at least £900. Who has that kind of money?

Yawn! You really should do a few clicks on amazon before making statements 
like that.  You do realise that for 900 pounds you can get a good quality 46 
inch full-HD TV!  Smaller ones are *considerably* cheaper (like less than 
half that price).

> And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
> prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour £800 
> or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)

Yawn!  Under 200 pounds now.

> much less technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond what 
> you can do with a DVD recorder...

Programs like Windows Movie Maker make it pretty easy.  Judging by the 
number of videos on YouTube made with it, I guess a fair number of people 
worked out how to use it.

Post a reply to this message

> I got PSP free with some camera ages ago (or it's like 50 quid I think).

Really? Every camera I've ever seen comes with some random paint package 
that nobody ever heard of... [And which does almost nothing beyond 
colour adjustments and automatic red-eye removal. Ooo, and maybe a few 
warps.]

>> I own a camcorder. It bearly produces SD quality, never mind HD! And 
>> it was not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.
> 
> Yawn! How old is it?

About 1 year?

> For 800 pounds today you can buy a really decent HD camcorder.

I didn't think you could buy a *still* camera for that kind of money. 
(Well, no, that's a slight exaggeration. £500 for a decent still camera.)

>> BTW, any ideas about *good* DVD authoring software? My drive came with 
>> some freebie that works, but it doesn't work fantastically well...
> 
> I think I used ULead DVD Movie Factory before, it worked pretty 
> seemlessly, but I didn't exactly tax it, I just wanted to put a few 
> .avis onto a proper DVD with a menu so a friend could watch them.  Was 
> really quick to use, had some nice pre-set menu graphics to chose from, 
> and burnt fine first time.

That's more or less the level of what I'm trying to do too. I make 
POV-Ray render some insane stuff, build AVIs out of it, and then put it 
onto a real DVD so it can be played anywhere. (Plus playing uncompressed 
video seems to stress my HD.)

The thing I've got seems to crash a lot. It allows you to do some 
limited video editing, but stubbornly refuses to allow you to do things 
like insert pauses or writing and so on.

>> Indeed. And all cost at least £900. Who has that kind of money?
> 
> Yawn! You really should do a few clicks on amazon before making 
> statements like that.  You do realise that for 900 pounds you can get a 
> good quality 46 inch full-HD TV!  Smaller ones are *considerably* 
> cheaper (like less than half that price).

You do realise that I was *in* Curries looking at new TVs only a few 
days ago, right?

>> And let's not forget, you still need an HD source. Those are still 
>> prohibitively expensive too. (Last I heard, a BluRay player is abour 
>> £800 or so. Only rich geeks need apply...)
> 
> Yawn!  Under 200 pounds now.

Really? That's a rather sudden price drop, don't you think? I mean, the 
format is still brand-spanking-new. Are there even any BluRay titles to 
play yet?

>> much less technically expert enough to attempt to *edit* video beyond 
>> what you can do with a DVD recorder...
> 
> Programs like Windows Movie Maker make it pretty easy.  Judging by the 
> number of videos on YouTube made with it, I guess a fair number of 
> people worked out how to use it.

Now that's just puzzling. I tried to use Windows Movie Maker once, and 
it wouldn't do *anything* I wanted it to do. Sure, I could take a bunch 
of videos and join them together to make one video. But that seemed to 
be the sum total of its abilities.

OTOH, most videos on YouTube seem to be unedited mobile phone videos... :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> That's more or less the level of what I'm trying to do too. I make POV-Ray 
> render some insane stuff, build AVIs out of it, and then put it onto a 
> real DVD so it can be played anywhere. (Plus playing uncompressed video 
> seems to stress my HD.)

For playback on PCs (and on the PS3 connected to my TV) I usually convert to 
h264 which is really good for high resolution.  I found a program called 
xvid4psp which is free and has a nice GUI to do all the conversion, without 
needing some huge command line only to find that your player doesn't support 
"adaptive b-frames" or some pyramid thingy.

> The thing I've got seems to crash a lot. It allows you to do some limited 
> video editing, but stubbornly refuses to allow you to do things like 
> insert pauses or writing and so on.

Oh, Windows Movie Maker is good for stuff like that, it's what I usually use 
for simple editing with text, still images, pauses etc.  I've got a feeling 
that it's only the version that comes with Vista that lets you do HD quality 
though, but I guess that's not a problem for you.

> You do realise that I was *in* Curries looking at new TVs only a few days 
> ago, right?

That's funny, on their website they have plenty of HDTVs under 400 pounds.

> Really? That's a rather sudden price drop, don't you think? I mean, the 
> format is still brand-spanking-new.

Hmm I don't think so, once the PS3 came out, basically nobody could sell a 
blu-ray player for above 400 pounds.  Since then the prices have gradually 
come down from 350 or so to the 200 you see today.

> Are there even any BluRay titles to play yet?

Amazon only have 1507 titles listed.

> Now that's just puzzling. I tried to use Windows Movie Maker once, and it 
> wouldn't do *anything* I wanted it to do. Sure, I could take a bunch of 
> videos and join them together to make one video. But that seemed to be the 
> sum total of its abilities.

You didn't notice the fades and text and all the effects you could add then?

Post a reply to this message

> For playback on PCs (and on the PS3 connected to my TV) I usually 
> convert to h264 which is really good for high resolution.  I found a 
> program called xvid4psp which is free and has a nice GUI to do all the 
> conversion, without needing some huge command line only to find that 
> your player doesn't support "adaptive b-frames" or some pyramid thingy.

I usually just use MPEG-1. It works everywhere, and it's easy to create. 
(Doesn't look quite as nice as a DVD though.)

I used to use Huffyuv, but it only gives you a few percent compression, 
and then one day it spectacularly stopped working on my PC and I nearly 
lost a whole load of renders that had taken months to produce. o_O

>> You do realise that I was *in* Curries looking at new TVs only a few 
>> days ago, right?
> 
> That's funny, on their website they have plenty of HDTVs under 400 pounds.

Well, unless they only put the expensive ones out on display or something...

>> Really? That's a rather sudden price drop, don't you think? I mean, 
>> the format is still brand-spanking-new.
> 
> Hmm I don't think so, once the PS3 came out, basically nobody could sell 
> a blu-ray player for above 400 pounds.  Since then the prices have 
> gradually come down from 350 or so to the 200 you see today.

Oh. So it's Sony's fault? ;-)

>> Are there even any BluRay titles to play yet?
> 
> Amazon only have 1507 titles listed.

OK, there is no way anybody could have shot over 1,000 movies in less 
than 4 months. That's impossible. They must just be rereleasing SD 
content printed on BluRay disks...

>> Now that's just puzzling. I tried to use Windows Movie Maker once, and 
>> it wouldn't do *anything* I wanted it to do. Sure, I could take a 
>> bunch of videos and join them together to make one video. But that 
>> seemed to be the sum total of its abilities.
> 
> You didn't notice the fades and text and all the effects you could add 
> then?

I noticed the faced, and the fact that these are limited to a maximum 
duration of 2 seconds - the exact limitation I was hoping to get round 
by using Windows Movie Maker instead of the other thingy.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Amazon only have 1507 titles listed.
>
> OK, there is no way anybody could have shot over 1,000 movies in less than 
> 4 months. That's impossible. They must just be rereleasing SD content 
> printed on BluRay disks...

What makes you think that older films only exist in SD format?  Do you think 
they always used to show SD format at the cinema?!?! :-O

> I noticed the faced, and the fact that these are limited to a maximum 
> duration of 2 seconds - the exact limitation I was hoping to get round by 
> using Windows Movie Maker instead of the other thingy.

Don't have that limitation here, just go to timeline view and drag the video 
clips around after you've applied the transition.

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
487365a2$1@news.povray.org...

> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't think 
> of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much memory.

At least, having a lot of memory lets you open many RAM-hungry apps at the 
same time. I can have FinalRender gobbling memory to render a huge scene and 
still be able to edit images with Photoshop while having Firefox opened with 
lots of tabs etc. Also, there are many professional applications where more 
RAM = bigger whatever is the goal of the application. I'm working with 
linear programming for instance, and more RAM = larger models.

G.

Post a reply to this message

>> OK, there is no way anybody could have shot over 1,000 movies in less 
>> than 4 months. That's impossible. They must just be rereleasing SD 
>> content printed on BluRay disks...
> 
> What makes you think that older films only exist in SD format?  Do you 
> think they always used to show SD format at the cinema?!?! :-O

Er... yes. (Let's face it, at the cinema the pictures are usually more 
blurry than on TV! For some reason, they never bother to get the 
projector sharply in focus...)

>> I noticed the faced, and the fact that these are limited to a maximum 
>> duration of 2 seconds - the exact limitation I was hoping to get round 
>> by using Windows Movie Maker instead of the other thingy.
> 
> Don't have that limitation here, just go to timeline view and drag the 
> video clips around after you've applied the transition.

I'll try it when I get home.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> Other than audio and video data (which is inherantly large), I can't think 
>> of anything you can do with a computer that actually uses much memory.
> 
> At least, having a lot of memory lets you open many RAM-hungry apps at the 
> same time. I can have FinalRender gobbling memory to render a huge scene and 
> still be able to edit images with Photoshop while having Firefox opened with 
> lots of tabs etc. Also, there are many professional applications where more 
> RAM = bigger whatever is the goal of the application. I'm working with 
> linear programming for instance, and more RAM = larger models.

OK, but all of what you've described is pretty unusual for home use.

Sure, I run flam3, which eats RAM like candy. But that's because I'm a 
nerd. Normal humans don't do things like that.

At any rate, none of this explains why *Vista*, by itself, requires 
multiple gigabytes of RAM. (And therefore, presumably, if you want to 
run *real applications* that require gigs of RAM, you have to add even 
more RAM to your system to accomodate them!)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> Er... yes. (Let's face it, at the cinema the pictures are usually more 
> blurry than on TV! For some reason, they never bother to get the projector 
> sharply in focus...)

Never noticed that before at the cinemas I've been at.  What I do notice is 
that even when you walk right up to the screen at the end, the text of the 
credits still looks good, even when you've got 1% of the screen taking up 1 
foot right infront of your face.  Now try going up close to your TV during 
the end credits of a film and seeing how detailed the text looks...  There's 
an order of magnitude difference.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I'm just loving the concept of "only 1 GB of RAM" - as if that's a 
> "small" amount or something...

Yeah, I was looking at machines in Fryes yesterday (just because I was 
there) and noticing all of them had either 2 or 5 gig, for fairly 
reasonably-priced machines. (Not cheap, mind, but below mid-range even 
had 2G of RAM.)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of 
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

I remember when Myst first came out on a CD. Wow, over 600 meg on one 
read-only disk. "Well," I thought, "there goes the end of game pirating. 
You'd never be able to copy such a thing onto a hard drive."

And yeah, it's nice to have a 10G text file, wonder how you're going to 
trim lines off the top and bottom conveniently, and then realize you are 
on a 64-bit machine with 16G of RAM, so you just fire up VI.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> And yeah, it's nice to have a 10G text file, wonder how you're going to 
> trim lines off the top and bottom conveniently, and then realize you are 
> on a 64-bit machine with 16G of RAM, so you just fire up VI.

Wouldn't scrolling the file take more than the linetime of the universe?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message