On Mon, 7 Dec 2015 13:30:07 +0200 "E.S. Rosenberg" <esr+linux...@g.jct.ac.il> wrote:
> BTW has anyone noticed how long we have been 'stuck' on 4GB RAM being > enough memory.... I have. In July 2011 I bought each of my triplets a laptop they could use for their freshman year college in the fall of 2011. At the time it seemed like Moore's law was slowing down: It seemed like 4GB had been the most common laptop configuration for a year or two, and it had been slowly descending in price. I bought each of the three laptops for just under $400USD each. People their age are very hard on laptops. They drop them. They use them 10 hours a day. They use them in bed, on the blankets, where there's no ventilation. They stumble on the power cord and break the power jack. Bottom line, during the 4 years they were in college, I needed to buy each of them two additional laptops. During that time, I noticed prices didn't drop, nor did RAM expand at the same price. First there was the touchscreen thing, which seemed to add about $200 to the price. So 4GB laptops went up into the high $500's. As touchscreens came down in price, 4GB laptops seemed to settle in the low $400's. It was the first time I can remember two years passing where either features didn't get better or price get lower (I don't consider touchscreen a feature). One of my daughters graduated from college last June. My son graduates in a few days. In the last few months, I've *finally* seen the price per Gig of laptop RAM go down. 4G laptops have finally achieved their 2011 lows, and a few weeks ago Costco was featuring a 6 or 8GB laptop for less than $400. And of course, now laptops and desktops aren't even a commodity anymore: The major marketplace is the various kinds of "devices" and "reconfigurables". With desktops it's no big deal: It's cheap and easy to slam together a 16GB box. With laptops, I wonder if we'll ever get better than what's happening now. Moore's law is dying. SteveT Steve Litt November 2015 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il