Implications of large memory systems

[Barry Shein]

>  If a workstation is really going to have 1GB memory something better
>than "more of same" is going to be needed to justify the cost.
>-- 
>	bill davidsen		(wedu at crd.GE.COM)

Well, to some extent, hoisted on my own petard, I've made similar
arguments.

But consider that 4 or 8MB workstations seemed just as out of sight a
very few years ago (remember, the entire physical address space of an
IBM370 architecture is/was [there are extensions now] 16MB!  And that
was the biggest mainframe architecture on the market.)

Did changing over from 64K or 256K chips to get the larger memories
significantly increase the price of the workstations? I don't think
so, quite the opposite. It's probably safe to assume that when
4Mb/16Mb/64Mb chips come available over the next (very) few years
they'll each be expensive for a short while and then drop down to the
cost level of what they're replacing.

So cost, other than replacing old equipment, will not be much of a
factor.

I don't think it will take too much to make you consider very large
memories on your workstation. Just mapping in all/most of /bin and
/usr/bin (etc) would probably make you want it if the guy next to you
has that.

It makes diskless/dataless workstations much more useful when you can
use, say, 1/2 GB of memory as a read/write-through cache for the
remote file system. Sure, cheap disks are going against that grain,
but many still like the advantages of remote file systems, no noise,
centralized backups and administration etc.

And when large memories show up the disks will cease to be cheap,
things are only cheap when the technology curves go out of kilter.

The current memory rationing makes a 1GB disk for $5K seem very cheap.
When you have a 1GB main memory on your workstation you'll need two or
three of those just for swap space (?!) and we'll be right back where
we started with our strategizing (unless something changes.)

And don't talk to me about the bandwidth to get things in and out of
those memories. And backups? Argh!

As an analogy, who needs a 15MIPS workstation? Very few people, but
they're available now and are cost competitive with slower
workstations so, hey, that's what we all want. The others will wither
on the vine.

And trust the software tribes to eat up all available resources for
you over time (have you seen the 3D window managers? etc)

I do believe we will see a "Software Gap" in the near future with
hardware vendors desparate for software applications which demand the
new generation of hardware they're producing to induce people to
upgrade.

There's nothing more terrifying to hardware manufacturers than
satisfied customers.

	-Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die