Just got my ancient Dell upgraded to 512 MB RAM, the maximum the board would hold, and an 80 GB hard drive. It had 192 MB RAM and (sitting down?) a 10 GB hard drive for XP Pro (hey, the computer was a gift).
Had hoped for at least 1 GB RAM, but had to settle for this. The computer was in the shop for nearly a month waiting on the RAM sticks (SDRAM), and the service tech said he's been having a lot of problems with back orders and incorrect memory shipments. (He also said that my computer originally had Windows 98, so it's o-l-d.) He thinks the huge memory requirements for Vista and certain XP applications are to blame for the supply problems. He ran into several problems with incompatible memory sticks, so I'm glad the tech handled this and not myself ($$$).
The tech said he had a system running Vista at home for gaming and for familiarity with the new system. His view is that Vista is slow and it blows. This seems to be what most reviewers are saying about Vista too, not to mention other threads in this section here on BITOG. I had toyed with getting a new computer, but he said for what I was doing I was better off to stay with what I have for now, since it runs well and I'm using an excellent anti-virus and -spyware package.
He pointed out a few things some of you might not realize. I knew that the 386 and 486 processors from way back could address a total of 4 GB of RAM, so I asked him what the Pentium III and Pentium 4 could address. He said that in a normal computer such as most of us would use at home and in a small business, it's still 4 GB. In certain applications with coprocessors and other fancy bells and whistles 16 GB becomes the limit. But he also mentioned that the most the standard Windows operating system can address is also 4 GB!
Now keep in mind that Vista requires 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM, depending on the version, and the consensus seems to be that you should double those figures for the system to run decently. That's a pretty large percentage of the total RAM the system can address. The tech attributed the increased RAM requirements for Vista to "bloat": he believes that the differences between Vista and XP don't justify the extra memory requirements. You have to wonder, though: are new processors and a new OS that can use more RAM in the pipeline?
It also seems that today's programmers simply don't know how to conserve memory. I speak as a former recreational programmer who learned many tricks in BASIC and machine code to conserve memory on the home systems of the 1980s such as the Commodore and the Sinclair computers that allowed you a maximum of 64K RAM with a Zilog Z80 chip. You would be surprised at what was possible on those machines with such limits using creative programming techniques. There seems to be little justification today for each new OS to require double—or more—the memory of the previous OS. Microsoft's people need to learn this.
Now wait—it gets better. Ha ha. The tech said that he can't simply install additional new generic memory in these newer systems as he did on my computer. As a general rule, these new computers require Microsoft registered memory, and the system won't recognize unregistered generic memory! Another way for Bill Gates to make more $$$.
Guess I'll keep what I have for now.
By the way, one of the wholesale clubs out my way still had systems with XP on the shelf. Check those places if you want a new computer at a good price but want to avoid Vista. Wally's World out here has nothing but Vista systems in stock now. Looks as if Vista ain't worth it.
The tech said he had a system running Vista at home for gaming and for familiarity with the new system. His view is that Vista is slow and it blows. This seems to be what most reviewers are saying about Vista too, not to mention other threads in this section here on BITOG. I had toyed with getting a new computer, but he said for what I was doing I was better off to stay with what I have for now, since it runs well and I'm using an excellent anti-virus and -spyware package.
He pointed out a few things some of you might not realize. I knew that the 386 and 486 processors from way back could address a total of 4 GB of RAM, so I asked him what the Pentium III and Pentium 4 could address. He said that in a normal computer such as most of us would use at home and in a small business, it's still 4 GB. In certain applications with coprocessors and other fancy bells and whistles 16 GB becomes the limit. But he also mentioned that the most the standard Windows operating system can address is also 4 GB!
Now keep in mind that Vista requires 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM, depending on the version, and the consensus seems to be that you should double those figures for the system to run decently. That's a pretty large percentage of the total RAM the system can address. The tech attributed the increased RAM requirements for Vista to "bloat": he believes that the differences between Vista and XP don't justify the extra memory requirements. You have to wonder, though: are new processors and a new OS that can use more RAM in the pipeline?
It also seems that today's programmers simply don't know how to conserve memory. I speak as a former recreational programmer who learned many tricks in BASIC and machine code to conserve memory on the home systems of the 1980s such as the Commodore and the Sinclair computers that allowed you a maximum of 64K RAM with a Zilog Z80 chip. You would be surprised at what was possible on those machines with such limits using creative programming techniques. There seems to be little justification today for each new OS to require double—or more—the memory of the previous OS. Microsoft's people need to learn this.
Now wait—it gets better. Ha ha. The tech said that he can't simply install additional new generic memory in these newer systems as he did on my computer. As a general rule, these new computers require Microsoft registered memory, and the system won't recognize unregistered generic memory! Another way for Bill Gates to make more $$$.
Guess I'll keep what I have for now.
