Text 53121, 37 rader
Skriven 2009-01-29 13:09:53 av Alan Zisman (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 53115 av Dan Ceppa (1:138/666.0)
Ärende: Google Earth- Ubuntu
============================
Dan Ceppa -> Alan Zisman wrote:
 ->> On 27 Jan 09  11:45:33, Alan Zisman got back to Dan Ceppa
 ->> Re: Google Earth- Ubuntu

 DC>> The web sites open as slow today as they did on much older equipment
 DC>> and connections.

 AZ>> There used to be a saying in tech circles: "Intel giveth and Microsoft
 AZ>> taketh away"... in other words, Windows feature creep and bloat more
 AZ>> or less evened out any increase in speed due to faster CPUs.

 DC> I think Billy once dreamed of an end wuth 640k . . .

I suspect this is an urban legend...

In the development of the original IBM-PC, it was IBM that decided on using the
(in many ways) brain-dead Intel 8088 CPU, rather than the more capable (but
slightly more expensive) 8086... one consequence of that was that the 8088
could only directly address 1024 kb (1 MB) of memory.

IBM wanted to partition that address space so 512 kb was available to the
operating system and applications, keeping the upper 512 kb for memory used by
various hardware devices such as the video buffer. Microsoft pushed them to
reserve more for OS + apps-- resulting in the 640 kb limit.

All the evidence of the time suggests that MS was more forward-thinking, while
IBM was trying to limit the capabilities of its PC in order to protect its
existing workstation/mainframe models. Of course, neither one could accurately
predict the future- both in terms of explosive growth and in terms of
limitations and failures.
==================================
- email: alan (at) zisman (dot) ca
- website: http://www.zisman.ca
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