6 ms·

Though I am reminded of the Ram Doublers from Connectix and others in the early 90s, and the buzz around magically doubling your memory... http://en.wikipedia.

by mwexler 13y ago

Though I am reminded of the Ram Doublers from Connectix and others in the early 90s, and the buzz around magically doubling your memory... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectix and http://www.ambrosiasw.com/ambrosia_times/january_96/3.1HowTo.html http://www.ambrosiasw.com/ambrosia_times/january_96/3.1HowTo...

makomk 13y ago
Sooner or later, everything old is new again.
- jdgiese 13y ago
  "everything"? I wonder when airplanes are going to be new again, or books, or cars. Maybe you mean everything related to computers? I am not sure of even that though...
  - TylerE 13y ago
    "Kindle" and "Tesla' are 2 out of 3...
    - joseph_cooney 13y ago
      Drones.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    Concorde was a good try. It failed for political and sociological reasons, but hypersonic airplanes were set to revolutionize air travel until it became politically unpopular to support. We're facing down a generation designed around space-based air travel, though, so it could happen again.
    - howeman 13y ago
      You mean supersonic airplanes? I don't think hypersonic airplanes have ever been seriously considered for passenger travel.
      - freehunter 13y ago
        Yeah, supersonic. My mistake.
  - chongli 13y ago
    Some time after World War 3?
lambda 13y ago
It's not a new idea, and it's not a bad idea. These kinds of things are best handled as an integrated component of the operating system, rather than a hacky third party add on, and are likely more viable now that we have so much more available CPU time, on multiple cores so it doesn't even impact latency, and better compression algorithms. Also note that Ram Doubler, per the Ambrosia Software description, didn't just do compression, it also re-used free RAM that other applications had allocated to them while they weren't running, depending on the cooperative multitasking nature of the operating system to avoid conflicts. Before yielding, it would either compress or swap out that "borrowed" RAM. A properly virtual memory system and cooperative multitasking make these techniques not particularly useful, while improvements in technology since have made compressed RAM more useful.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

by mwexler 13y ago

makomk 13y ago

Sooner or later, everything old is new again.

jdgiese 13y ago
"everything"? I wonder when airplanes are going to be new again, or books, or cars. Maybe you mean everything related to computers? I am not sure of even that though...
- TylerE 13y ago
  "Kindle" and "Tesla' are 2 out of 3...
  - joseph_cooney 13y ago
    Drones.
- freehunter 13y ago
  Concorde was a good try. It failed for political and sociological reasons, but hypersonic airplanes were set to revolutionize air travel until it became politically unpopular to support. We're facing down a generation designed around space-based air travel, though, so it could happen again.
  - howeman 13y ago
    You mean supersonic airplanes? I don't think hypersonic airplanes have ever been seriously considered for passenger travel.
    - freehunter 13y ago
      Yeah, supersonic. My mistake.
- chongli 13y ago
  Some time after World War 3?

lambda 13y ago

It's not a new idea, and it's not a bad idea. These kinds of things are best handled as an integrated component of the operating system, rather than a hacky third party add on, and are likely more viable now that we have so much more available CPU time, on multiple cores so it doesn't even impact latency, and better compression algorithms. Also note that Ram Doubler, per the Ambrosia Software description, didn't just do compression, it also re-used free RAM that other applications had allocated to them while they weren't running, depending on the cooperative multitasking nature of the operating system to avoid conflicts. Before yielding, it would either compress or swap out that "borrowed" RAM. A properly virtual memory system and cooperative multitasking make these techniques not particularly useful, while improvements in technology since have made compressed RAM more useful.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]