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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. David who wrote (20778)	3/9/1998 3:15:00 AM
From: WeisbrichA	Respond to of 97611

JD, In my 20+ years in the computer/technology/programming business, I have seen a lot of performance increases and programming changes. The performance of CPU is still way ahead of uses IN THE BUSINESS WORLD. What you will probably see is better use of gobs of cheap memory. Having large amounts of RAM available is like having a 60 nanosecond disk device. I believe that 32 MB will be standard for most home and small business PC this year and 64 MB will be standard for NT4/NT5 workstations. You could see those numbers double in another year. Up to now, the programming/computer industry has had to live with memory constraints because of RAM price. I remember having to write programs with lots of 2K overlays because of memory constraints. Slows the system down pulling in each one. Same with multi-tasking systems. More memory means nanosecond access to applications, not milliseconds. Same thing for those superprogs who do O/S. Many large systems have "RAM Disk" which can effectively be used for "Near memory" access. Having a 512 MB RAMDisk available is like 3 or so microsecond access. Suppose you could do a very large table lookup in RAMdisk rather than having to search disk. Now go a step farther and store that same table in main memory. With cheap main memory, speeds of access are FASTER still. Programming can become even more complicated, but less so if you do not have to worry about memory constraints. E-mail has been around for years and years on Unix and mainframe. . In fact this application takes very little resources on a client PC. My contention is that the MAJORITY of PCs are already grossly underused and overpowered. Now, for the Web. The Web has new browsing and marketing applications but bandwidth is a far greater concern than speed of CPU or PC. The CPU is loafing virtually all the time when you are on the web over a telephone modem. When you get to a T1 or cable with speeds in the 1+ Mbit range, you might push a P5/160 a bit. Remember, lots of cheap memory and high I/O bandwidth (particluarly network) are key to the generation of new and better apps. WIthin six months, I am sure that you will see what I mean. RW