4 ms·
Yeah, but I remember when computers had 1KB RAM, and 64KB was more than the largest mainframe and seemed insanely massive. And then there was the time, a handf
by __d 5y ago
Yeah, but I remember when computers had 1KB RAM, and 64KB was more than the largest mainframe and seemed insanely massive.
And then there was the time, a handful of years later, when "No one will ever need more than 640KB".
And then 4GB was stupidly massive, and no-one could want, let alone afford, that much RAM.
The same with CPU clockspeed (my first computer ran at 2MHz), storage capacity (I paid several thousand dollars for my first 5MB hard drive).
Which is not to say that the curve won't flatten out as we approach the number of atoms in the universe, but ... there's never quite enough of anything.
- emteycz 5y agoWouldn't a computer with 18 exabytes of RAM be totally impractically massive, even with maximal possible miniaturization? I agree with warehouse-scale "thinking machines" going beyond 64 bits, but standard hardware is hard to believe.
- __d 5y agoCurrent chips are basically 2D. Not quite, in that they do have 3D features, but those 3D features are essentially still implementing individual cells in a 2D circuit. And those 2D circuits fit, eg. 4Gbits of DRAM into a single layer chip. The actual chip inside the plastic packaging is quite small -- let's say 4x4mm. Now, you can can pack multiple layers of chips into a single package. Samsung is doing at least 12 layers for HBM, for instance, and they're only 60um thick each. So you've got a chip that is roughly 65536 cells wide, and 65536 cells long, but you can only stack it 12 cells high. Let's get that to 65536 layers: roughly a 4mm cube. That's now 256Tbits per package. Put 36 of those on a DIMM, and you've got an 8PB DIMM, and 512 PB in a 64 DIMM slot server. Perhaps we can double the density? That gives us 4EB in a server. This totally glosses over myriad difficult issues, but it's a very, very long way from being inconceivable when you consider the difference between a 512 byte 2114 RAM chip that was popular when I got my first computer, and what we have today.