Reply 80 of 92, by Jo22
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kingcake wrote on 2024-03-01, 03:21:32MB of RAM was a ton when Win 95 first launched. Most people did not have that much memory. 4-8MB was much more realistic at launch date. However Win 95 quickly pushed people to upgrade.
True. But it doesn't change the fact that Windows 95 or OS/2 had a need for such "
amounts of memory.
It was as with Windows Vista, essentially.
The official minimum requirements weren't honest, either.
The amount of memory that was needed for a "normal" use of Vista was above that.
Also, it's also a matter of priorities.
A programmer or database guy has different needs than a home user or gamer.
Most gamers in the DOS days didn't have the money for a memory expansion,
but simultaneously had lots of cash they could spend for big HDDs, a very fast 486 motherboard, double/quad speed CD-ROM drive or an expensive graphics card.
My father, for example, was the opposite.
He had a slow and dated PC and saved up the money for Windows and his applications.
It was a business PC, so to say.
Because of this, he could also get a tax refund for business related things.
You know, things like printer paper, printer ink and stuff. Or advertisement gifts.
Expenses required to run the business.
Edit: Tax refunds isn't exactly right term here, maybe. What I meant to say, the expenses were taken into account in the tax return.
English isn't my first language, sorry about that.
Edit: It was Win 95 RTM what ran on the 386DX-40 w/ 16 MB.
The upgrade version for Windows 3.x, I think.
It was the CD-ROM version, though.
Edit: It may also depend on the kind of applications being run.
Calculator, Paint and Notepad barely consume memory. They're more like utilities than applications, also.
OSes like GEM, Mac OS or that The Final Cartridge (C64) had them as part of their desktop application.
Full-fledged 32-Bit applications like MS Word, Visual C++ 4, Visual Basic 4 or Encarta may be different.
They may rather trigger Windows 95 into swapping.
Considering that small Windows 3.1x applications were still in wide use in the early days of Windows 95,
the high swap file usage wasn't as apparent to some users as it could be, maybe.
Edit: 4 MB is what I had in my 286-12 same time, to run Windows 3.1x in Standard-Mode.
It was a humble PC, too, with the exception for RAM expansion and the soundcard w/ SCSI CD-ROM drive.
VGA was plain VGA in 640x480 16c (mode 12h) most of time, because of the integrated ATI VGA Wonder from 1988 (256KB VGA RAM).
Edit: Back in the 90s, quite a number of systems ran below their real minimum requirements, I think.
The N64 console shipped with 4 MB of RAM, but Big N knew it wouldn't be enough from very start.
That's why the expansion pack was sold separately.
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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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