New Amiga Accelerators

[Nlandas]

Piru wrote:

Since you CAN'T turn off the swap file on an XP (it won't work right anymore, it is pure garbage), then people would want to use it as swap space!!!

EDITS........

That's huge load of nonsense. First of all you can turn the swap off and it works just fine.

EDITS............

Actually Piru, I really hate to agree with anything in the other statements but there are applications that will not function well with Windows XP, if you turn off the swap file. So while yes you can turn it off, Even with 3.5GB of RAM installed it is not normally recommended to permanently turn off the page file.

So while it can be "turned off" it's better to only do that temporarily to work on problems like fragmentation or to run a specific application like a game for better FPS, than to leave it off. Windows normally runs optimally with the page file on. (There are a few exceptions, mainly in high FPS gaming that I've seen.)

There's a good discussion here

and

Microsoft's recommendation here.

I feel so dirty, I've been told it's never a good idea to disagree with Piru.  :lol:

[Nlandas]

bd1308 wrote:
as laughable as the above comments are, this one really stuck out. Why would MS of all people put some arbitrary limit on memory?

:lol:

To quote Bill Gates, "Nobody one will ever need more than 640K of ram." Ever, no how, no way - 640K of ram is just WAY too much ram for the average person. We'll be running 640K of ram for the next 50 years.

Well I might have added the last part. :lol:

Sorry just kidding around because actually your statement is 100%, even back with 640K+384K it was a limit of the 20-bit address of the processor.

"I laid out memory so the bottom 640K was general purpose RAM and the upper 384 I reserved for video and ROM, and things like that. That is why they talk about the 640K limit. It is actually a limit, not of the software, in any way, shape, or form, it is the limit of the microprocessor. That thing generates addresses, 20-bits addresses, that only can address a megabyte of memory. And, therefore, all the applications are tied to that limit. It was ten times what we had before. But to my surprise, we ran out of that address base for applications within—oh five or six years people were complaining."

* Smithsonian Institution interview (1993)

Bill was still surprised that anyone would need more so quickly. Techno-genius that he is.  :roll:

[skurk]

Nlandas wrote:
To quote Bill Gates, "Nobody one will ever need more than 640K of ram."

You do know that's not true, right?

[BlackMonk]

Atheist wrote:
Make a PCI card for the NatAmi60 that can hold 16 Gigs of ram.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/1

Something like that?  I am not sure if there was enough of a market to sustain that product in the PC world.  Yeah, only 4 GB max, but what can ya do.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2179

Oh hey there's a second gen version:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2678

[persia]

Reminds me, I was talking to a PC salesman the other day, we had to buy equipment to use software that only runs on 32 bit XP (Zeiss LMS software).  And he said you really have to load up the ram, so without thinking I just said would 16GB be enough (that's typically what we order on Mac Pros) and he was flabbergasted, he meant 4 GB, the max for 32 bit XP.  To him THAT was a lot of memory....

Anyway, thankfully I don't deal with MS Windows machines more than once a month...

[pyrre]

"640K ought to be enough for anybody"
Is the correct Bill Gates quote...

[KThunder]

according to wikiquote:

640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Often attributed to Gates in 1981. Gates considered the IBM PC's 640kB program memory a significant breakthrough over 8-bit systems that were typically limited to 64kB, but he has denied making this remark.[3] Also see the 1989 and 1993 remarks above.
I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time... I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again.

[Jpan1]

Thought about making an Amiga fast card from a piece of toast>> this is the max of my technical knowledge!
hmmmm smells great!

[motorollin]

Worst thread ever.

--
moto

[Nlandas]

skurk wrote:

Nlandas wrote:
To quote Bill Gates, "Nobody one will ever need more than 640K of ram."

You do know that's not true, right?

Not true according to who? Bill Gates?

[KThunder]

not true that that is a quote of bill gates, see my post above from wikiquote. he said that he never said that, noone has any reference or citation of him ever saying that. it is probably from someone who doesnt like him or microsoft.

[Nlandas]

KThunder wrote:
according to wikiquote:

640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Often attributed to Gates in 1981. Gates considered the IBM PC's 640kB program memory a significant breakthrough over 8-bit systems that were typically limited to 64kB, but he has denied making this remark.[3] Also see the 1989 and 1993 remarks above.
I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time... I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again.

Yeah, I wouldn't agree that I said it either. It was a quote in a magazine interview that I read back in the 80s some time with Bill Gates. He didn't say forever but he did make it seem like a really long time.

He then was later interviewed for the Smithsonian and admitted to being surprised that 640K was only good for a few years.  - Wiki isn't always right.

"I laid out memory so the bottom 640K was general purpose RAM and the upper 384 I reserved for video and ROM, and things like that. That is why they talk about the 640K limit. It is actually a limit, not of the software, in any way, shape, or form, it is the limit of the microprocessor. That thing generates addresses, 20-bits addresses, that only can address a megabyte of memory. And, therefore, all the applications are tied to that limit. It was ten times what we had before. But to my surprise, we ran out of that address base for applications within—oh five or six years people were complaining. "

* Smithsonian Institution interview (1993)

Edit:

from the 1989 interview linked to by Dan Oblak:

BILL GATES:
"  I have to say in 1981 making those decisions I felt like I was providing enough freedom for ten years, that is the move from 64k to 640k felt like something that would last a great deal of time."  

[source]

[KThunder]

in 81 he said it should be good for 10 years or so. it wasnt till 6yrs later people really wanted more but not until win95 came out that it was really put to good use.
he was comparing the 640k to the 64k 8bit cpus could use

i think everything about how pcs took off suprised everyone back then and then the price of ram dropped

[Nlandas]

KThunder wrote:
in 81 he said it should be good for 10 years or so. it wasnt till 6yrs later people really wanted more but not until win95 came out that it was really put to good use.
he was comparing the 640k to the 64k 8bit cpus could use

i think everything about how pcs took off suprised everyone back then and then the price of ram dropped

Yes, that's how he more clearly put it 8 years later. I remember reading him quoted in a major magazine. I didn't have the Internet back in 1986 when I read that quote. I also know that I didn't hear it from anyone as a verbal tradition, I read it in print.

I guess they could have mis-quoted him but I doubt it considering he's put in context in several other interviews later that he did feel that 640K was going to be adequate for longer than it was. Anyway, I'll stop here as this is a totally different thread at this pojnt that "New Amiga Accelerators." Appologees.

I'd love to see new Amiga accelerators. I'd like even better a new Amiga Motherboard that ran OS 4 and moved us into the late 90s and hopefully generated enough $$$ to make it possible to continue AmigaOS development. Ah, to dream.

[cynkronyze]

Please somebody run by me again why the development (apart from obvious reasons - cash, time, people) of an Intel / AMD based accelerator is conceived as NOT a possibility?

Agreed that OS4 and other recent apps are 68k or PPC based but why not a solution where in the subroutines of a ppc or a 68k chip / processor can be mapped to a more modern instruction set of an Intel or an AMD and then let the processing be done?

-Cynk

[KThunder]

the amount of glue logic to adapt signals from a x86 to a 68k socket would be very expensive, inefficient, and require a significant amount of engineering.
imagine adapting a core2 duo to a 286 motherboard add emulation in (not a big hit but still) and expect how much in perforamnce.

two words [color=ff0000]Amiga Forever[/color]

emulation gives you all the benefits of the x86 accelerator plus it has a new (no caps leaking) motherboard and practically free piccasso video.