aNewDomain.net — What good is a computer that has no memory? No memory means no room to store stuff. And computers certainly have a lot of stuff these days. The history of memory sure is fascinating.
Back when older computers came with a very limited amount of memory, programs were written as tight and efficient as possible. It was amazing the programs that people wrote with such limitations.
Now that memory is cheap and abundant, programmers go hog wild with their inefficiency. The original Pong game took up less than 2K of RAM. Now, a Pong app is 10MB. I’ll admit the graphics are better but does it have to use 9,998,000 more bytes? Sure!
It’s easy to see why. Memory has gotten so cheap and so fast and so efficient, it’s hard not to write anything that wastes gobs of it. Memory is as good as free. Hippies had “free love,” now it’s “free ram.” Not an exact trade, but hey, lets use as much of that memory as we can.
For aNewDomain.net, I’m Tom Sloan.
Tom Sloan has drawn cartoons and illustrations for numerous publications — including the original BYTE magazine. Not limited to print, Tom’s cartoons and collages are displayed in museums and galleries throughout the United States. He’s also an accomplished animator. He’s created animations for such as clients Sesame Street, HBO, Nickelodeon, Captain Kangaroo, Romper Room, Burger King and McDonalds.
