Back in the '80s, programmers had to watch every kilobyte of RAM they used. All variables had to be the correct types and had to have a good purpose, and every graphic had to be compressed down to as few colors in the palette as possible. All those 16-bit unsigned integers added up.

Now look at today. We have so much RAM that programmers don't even know what to do with it all. Programs that really have no need for 512 MB of it will just take it just in case it needs it later. A lot of Adobe products seem to be this way, and it can be made clear when you use older computers with Flash. Adobe isn't the only culprit, though; Microsoft's own software seems to be similar with taking extra RAM. Office and IE don't seem to really have that problem unless you're on a netbook or something (where it has almost nothing to do with the RAM and instead the processor).

Imagine this: what if we were still under restrictive amounts of RAM? Don't you think that programmers would get the hint that they'd need to optimize their programs and fix a lot of the feature creep and replace it with options during installation? What about memory leaks and wasting of variables?

(Let's avoid jokes about VRIM here. We all know how bad that is with RAM.)

If RAM was more restrictive, programmers would definitely take a closer look at how much RAM their program uses and pay more attention to memory leaks during debugging. Software and OS designers would probably try to find ways in which less RAM would be used and maybe even try to find ways around using RAM if at all possible.

Sloppy programming practices would become really unfeasible then! These days, with memory management not being a priority, it sure allows one to go wild with stuff, though, so I'm not sure if it's even a remotely good thing if we have a limited amount of RAM.

That said, I have a feeling that the DS/DSi/PSP might just be the very last memory-constrained environment... these days even the most entry-level of devices come with 128 MB of really fast RAM or 256.

Just imagine how effective things would be if they were programmed with the precision and efficiency of the past but with modern technology. I'm no expert, but things could probably get pretty spiffy. I'd like to listen to my own music while I play minecraft, but I can't because between having that open and one or more instant messengers, I'm already using more RAM than I'd like. I don't know what it is about me, but I don't like to see my laptop's RAM usage go over 40%, and it has 8GB of the stuff.

Hm, that does remind me of when on that Pentium II with 160 MB of RAM. When using Opera, it had no trouble keeping under 50 MB at most times.

I have 16GB of RAM. On startup the computer, Windows 7 Home Premium, uses 2GB of it. I have a hyper threaded Intel Core i7, 8 cores at 4.20GHz. Yes, overclocked. The system told me it would run better at that speed so I just did it. I have a 15,000 RPM 1TB hard disk drive, I dunno the video card but I think it has 2.8GB of video cache capacity or something. I dunno. And yes, it cost a lot of money, but I think it was worth it. Now I have no idea what I would do if I had to drop down to 512MB RAM... I think I'd throw my computer through a wall.

Nice setup!

For kicks, I think I'll try running my laptop on 512 MB for a day or two and report back on how it runs.

While I do believe that people would be more efficient in saving RAM, I think the world would also be moving a lot slower. Technology would be several steps behind, and I'd rather have more RAM and less RAM-savvy people and higher tech than less RAM, better management, and lower tech.