Your computer!

[stitch626]

Grundig, why do you have 6 GB RAM if Windows (supozedly) can only run 4?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Grundig, why do you have 6 GB RAM if Windows (supozedly) can only run 4?

Depends on whether it's 32 bit or 64 bit Windows. Any 32 bit system is limited to 4 GB natively. 64 bits natively supports quite a bit more than 4 GB of RAM. There are workarounds in 32 bits too, though not as effectively as when its natively supported.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

When I upgrade in a few years, I'm going for the next gen of Intel proc, codenamed "Nehalem", to be branded "Core i7." The first ones should be released very soon. They'll feature, among other things, integrated memory controllers which will allow the CPU to access RAM a hechovalot faster than the current architecture is capable of (AMD has been doing this for a while, but Intel chips still performed better).

Also, I'd love to get in on those Solid State Discs rather than a magnetic HDD - they use less power, and can be accessed far faster than the fastest magnetic HDD. Application launch times, boot times, file access times will all be boosted quite a bit by the use of SSD's - the HDD currently is the slowest part of the mainstream computer of today by far. They're currently limited in capacity and way more expensive per GB, but companies, led by Samsung and Toshiba, are investing huge amounts of resources into developing them and making them economical.

[Tsukiyumi]

Given my recent experience with the hurricane, I'm wondering if the Solid State tech would be less or more susceptible to humidity. Fortitude has become a primary concern of mine in regard to hardware.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Since they have no moving parts, SSDs are indeed less vulnerable to physical damage. Only the fans will have moving parts once these things take over.

[Tsukiyumi]

Since they have no moving parts, SSDs are indeed less vulnerable to physical damage. Only the fans will have moving parts once these things take over.

Yeah, but the humidity is my concern. My older RAM died along with my old HD... Electronics don't like getting wet.

[Teaos]

Everytime I hear someone has a TB harddrive I think back to the days of my first computer with 12MB of memory.

[Mikey]

My first year of college, all students were required to have a PC in their room. This was a big deal at the time, and enforced only because it was the number-one engineering school in the nation at the time. We got a deal through AT&T for 386's (!) cheap, or we could pay a little more for 486's. We had to type in the "ship" command at the DOS prompt before shutting down, to pick the heads up off the HD - if the heads were still close, a moderate bump could cause the heads to contact the disk and erase it. 2 or 4 megs of RAM was standard.

Of course, there was no internet either - we had the VAX/VMS relay at NYU and could communicate with a few other universities.

[Grundig]

Mikey, that's awesome! Did you get to see Al Gore invent the internet??? Where did you study?

Stitch, I'm pretty sure my processor is 64 bit. It's an AMD Phenom X4 9550 quad core. When you say system, do you mean processor/MB setup? I mean, it's a pre-packaged HP - they wouldn't throw in 2 useless gigabytes of ram.

[Mikey]

Mikey, that's awesome! Did you get to see Al Gore invent the internet???

No, I was out that day.

Where did you study?

Stevens Institute of Technology. We also had Chem-E majors stilling 150-proof in dorm rooms; mech-E majors building an engine in a defunct river boat which was moored and used as dorm rooms, and then sending it up the Hudson; and guys making black powder in the labs to launch tennis balls from a "decorative" cannon at passing sailboats.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

The current architecture is unofficially numbered i686-64 (64-bit chips, even though the most common OSs are still 32-bit; 64 these 64-bit procs can still run 32 bit instructions) P4 was i786 - Intel actually "stepped down" from Pentium 4 to Core, but ended up with a far superior line of chips.

My first computer was an i386; I don't remember its specs because I was too young to care about that at the time. I do remember that it booted in DOS and needed the "win" command to enter Windows.

At the time I was at Stevens, we were given free Compaq laptops. I recall it had a Pentium 4 running at 1.8 GHz and a 12 GB HDD (this was 2000).

My first printer was a dot-matrix printer. You had to tear the feed strips from the sides and tear the perforations between sheets to get individual pages.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Mikey, that's awesome! Did you get to see Al Gore invent the internet??? Where did you study?

Stitch, I'm pretty sure my processor is 64 bit. It's an AMD Phenom X4 9550 quad core. When you say system, do you mean processor/MB setup? I mean, it's a pre-packaged HP - they wouldn't throw in 2 useless gigabytes of ram.

All modern procs are 64 bit. There is no such thing as a 32-bit quad-core chip. However, most people are still running 32 bit OSs on 64 bit procs (it works fine, and doesn't make a big difference so long as they don't have more than 4 GB of RAM).

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Oh, those 12 GB of HDD that old laptop had... my three current mobile devices, each of which fits easily into a pocket (alone or with the other two even), add up to more storage : 14 GB total.

[Sionnach Glic]

Man, I'm totaly lost reading all this.

[Grundig]

So is Vista Home Premium 32 bit?

Edit: no, it's 64 bit.