Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!remus.rutgers.edu!declan
From: declan@remus.rutgers.edu (Declan McCullagh/LZ)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: How low can you go?
Message-ID: <Feb.28.01.10.04.1991.28898@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 28 Feb 91 06:10:04 GMT
References: <vesper.667668027@kong> <1372@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1991Feb28.043153.8516@utstat.uucp>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 41

In article <1991Feb28.043153.8516@utstat.uucp>, philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes:
> In article <1372@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes:
>
> >Beware of false economy: anything less than 16MB is a *big*
> >mistake in any NeXT.
> 
> Why is 12megs a big mistake on a monochrome cube which is used by one
> user?

This is one area in which I wholeheartedly agree with Eric; when
buying a NeXT system for about $3,000 - $5,000, it makes little sense
to skimp on memory.

You'll notice an incredible user interface performance difference
going from 8 MB to 16 MB.  A similar difference will be visible,
though not as dramatic, at 12 MB.

Why?  NeXT applications, even with shared libraries in 2.0, run large.
The WindowServer is gigantic - I've seen it use up to 15 MB on a 32 MB
NeXTstation Color (though this admittedly may be an extreme example).
The Workspace Manager takes a Megabyte or two as well.

If you use only one application, you may be satisfied with your
system's performance at 8 MB; if you use more than one at one time,
you'll be swapping a lot.

Especially if you have a cube, spend the extra $250 or so to get 16
MB.  If you have a monochrome NeXTstation, you have a more difficult
choice - throw away/sell four 1 MB SIMMs and replace with four 4 MB
SIMMs at a cost of about $780.

If you can, borrow memory from a friend and see what kind of
difference it makes.

-Declan

PS: On my system, 'ps aux' reports Preferences as using about 880 KB of
"real" memory.  Let's assume that there are 30,000 NeXT systems out
there, with about 25,000 usually running Preferences upon login.
That's about 22,000 MB of RAM, or about 22 GB of RAM used to
display that many clocks.  Wow.