Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!world!boris
From: boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: New Macintosh Strategy
Keywords: Macintosh
Message-ID: <1990Oct30.075308.15261@world.std.com>
Date: 30 Oct 90 07:53:08 GMT
References: <306@cti1.UUCP> <1990Oct29.191639.7536@athena.mit.edu> <1055@mdavcr.UUCP>
Distribution: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 41

ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell) writes that virtual memory is a feature
that people who "only" do wordprocessing and simple office tasks do, in fact,
need.

Now, I don't like puny 8MHz-68000-type machines with puny little 1MB RAMs
any more than Mr. Mitchell does.  I have near-daily arguments with
administrators who cite the "these people ONLY want..." line to me.
(Typically, only people who are either unaware of what they can do with
powerful machines or are intellectually lazy are happy with Pluses, SEs
and Classics in their standard configuration; likewise, many DOS users
who have never experienced a Mac don't feel the need for one, living as they
do in the North Korea of the computer world.)

But VM is rather beside that point.  I do rather intensive multitasking in my
4MB (soon to be 5MB) RAM, as the LC-owning secretaries/English students will
also be able to do.  (At $37-odd per 1MB SIMM, stuffing your Mac to the limit
with RAM is cheaper than getting a 68030 model.)  Why these people need VM
into the double-digit megabyte range is beyond me, especially considering that
the virtual part of that RAM will be unbearably slow (I've used Ready-Set-Go
with its down-your-throat VM facility, and I've tried Word's load-only-used-
portion-of-document thing, and as a result, I'm less excited about VM than
practically any other System 7.0 feature).  VM is for people who need RAM
beyond the generous physical RAM limits of every Mac down to the Plus.  That
means serious (particularly color) DTPers, people who do animation or
rendering, video and sound editing, CAD, work with Mathematica or run A/UX --
in other words, do things that, on a Mac, can be done with virtual memory
or expensive RAM NuBus cards or not at all.

Now, with all the multitasking capabilities the Mac has today, the world is
still alarmingly full of those pathetic 8MHz-68000, 1MB RAM Macs.  Wanting VM
while such suffering is so commonplace is like living in the USSR and wanting
Communism; let's concentrate on the doable and the realistic first, like a
16MHz 020 (at least) and 4MB RAM in every pot.

Boris Levitin
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WGBH Public Broadcasting, Boston                         boris@world.std.com
Audience & Marketing Research              wgbx!boris_levitin@athena.mit.edu
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(The opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily coincide 
with those of my employer or anyone else.  The WGBH tag is for ID only.)