By BILL GATES c.1996 Bloomberg Business News [...] QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K of memory should be enough for anybody.'' What did you mean when you said this?
ANSWER: I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.
The need for memory increases as computers get more potent and software gets more powerful. In fact, every couple of years the amount of memory address space needed to run whatever software is mainstream at the time just about doubles. This is well-known.
When IBM introduced its PC in 1981, many people attacked Microsoft for its role. These critics said that 8-bit computers, which had 64K of address space, would last forever. They said we were wastefully throwing out great 8-bit programming by moving the world toward 16-bit computers.
We at Microsoft disagreed. We knew that even 16-bit computers, which had 640K of available address space, would be adequate for only four or five years. (The IBM PC had 1 megabyte of logical address space. But 384K of this was assigned to special purposes, leaving 640K of memory available. That's where the now-infamous ``640K barrier'' came from.)
A few years later, Microsoft was a big fan of Intel's 386 microprocessor chip, which gave computers a 32-bit address space.
Modern operating systems can now take advantage of that seemingly vast potential memory. But even 32 bits of address space won't prove adequate as time goes on.
Meanwhile, I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again. --------------------------------- end excerpt ---------------------------------
Does anyone have the cite for the first time this statement was attributed to Bill Gates?
-- ---- Tom Betz --------- <http://www.pobox.com/~tbetz> ------ (914) 375-1510 -- tb...@pobox.com | We have tried ignorance for a very long | tb...@panix.com ------------------+ time, and it's time we tried education. +----------------- -- Computers help us to solve problems we never had before they came along. --
Tom Betz (tb...@pobox.com) wrote: > Does anyone have the cite for the first time this statement was attributed > to Bill Gates?
I'm sure it's not the first attribution, but the oldest one I could find was this one from a 1988 issue of InfoWorld:
"Memory is a bit different, however. Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates once said 640K of memory was more than anyone needed. He was wrong. Nobody realized, however, that the 20 bits of addressing in the AT wouldn't be enough . . ."
- snopes
+------------------------------------------------------------------+ | snopes reserves the right to make improvements in the article | | packaged with this .sig at any time and without notice. | +------------------------------------------------------------------+
Quoth Tom Betz: : Bill Gates writes a column distributed by the New York Times Syndicate. : : Here's an excerpt from a recent column. : : Excerpted from: CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN COMPUTING -- AND MORE (1/19) : : <http://nytsyn.com/live/Gates/019_011996_094929_4351.html> : By BILL GATES ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: c.1996 Bloomberg Business News : [...] : QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K of memory should : be enough for anybody.'' What did you mean when you said this? : : ANSWER: I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No
> By BILL GATES > c.1996 Bloomberg Business News >[...] >QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K should >be enough for anybody.''
I always thought he was talking about his monthly bonus, not computer memory...
>When IBM introduced its PC in 1981, many people attacked Microsoft for its >role. These critics said that 8-bit computers, which had 64K of address space, >would last forever. They said we were wastefully throwing out great 8-bit >programming by moving the world toward 16-bit computers.
And they were right, too :-) 8-bit computers are still with us; it was pointed out in a review of the Amstrad PcW16 that the complete computer with software costs less than a copy of Microsoft Office. And how long did it take to get an MS OS to multitask properly? 8-bit OSs had been doing it since MP/M.
-- John Elliott.
-- -------------------- http://sable.ox.ac.uk/~sjoh0132/ --------------------- John Elliott |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?" |SEAGOON: "Heavy dentures, Sir!" - The Goon Show :-------------------------------------------------------------------------)
>Quoth Tom Betz: >: Bill Gates writes a column distributed by the New York Times Syndicate. >: >: Here's an excerpt from a recent column. >: >: Excerpted from: CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN COMPUTING -- AND MORE (1/19) >: >: <http://nytsyn.com/live/Gates/019_011996_094929_4351.html> >: By BILL GATES > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>: c.1996 Bloomberg Business News >: [...] >: QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K of memory should >: be enough for anybody.'' What did you mean when you said this? >: >: ANSWER: I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No
>So who is Bill Gates interviewing here?
Don't know but in the book "Hackers" (page 485), Wild Bill is quoted as saying: "If anyone needs more than 640k, they can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut!".
>: [...] >: QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K of memory should >: be enough for anybody.'' What did you mean when you said this? >: >: ANSWER: I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No >So who is Bill Gates interviewing here?
I don't see how he can get out of this one now... it's been reported from too many otherwise-reliable sources. I used to have a copy of a very early requote of it, but cannot find it now. It was in response to questions about the DOS memory architecture, and of course BG was defending his/MS's choice.
Turtle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Visit the Weightless Dog Home Page! http://www.charm.net/~turtle * *** Ask me about Lotus Notes, digital video, Volvos and the blues! *** ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> I don't see how he can get out of this one now... it's been reported > from too many otherwise-reliable sources. I used to have a copy of a > very early requote of it, but cannot find it now. It was in response > to questions about the DOS memory architecture, and of course BG was > defending his/MS's choice.
Except, of course, the 640Kb limit has nothing to do with BG or MS, nor in fact much to do with MS-DOS. PC-DOS (and MS-DOS for IBM PC clones) _enforces_ the 640Kb limit of the machine's architecture. The actual limit comes from the choice of the 8086/8088 and the hardware mapping of the machines subsytsems, notably the CGA addressing.
No decision of BG or MS could have changed this on the IBM< PC. On other hardware, such as the Victor 9000/ACT Sirius, MS-DOS had no 640Kb limit, if enough RAM was fitted then MS-DOS (or CP/M-86) could have over 900Kb available.
>> very early requote of it, but cannot find it now. It was in response >> to questions about the DOS memory architecture, and of course BG was >> defending his/MS's choice. >Except, of course, the 640Kb limit has nothing to do with BG or MS, >nor in fact much to do with MS-DOS. PC-DOS (and MS-DOS for IBM PC >clones) _enforces_ the 640Kb limit of the machine's architecture. >The actual limit comes from the choice of the 8086/8088 and the >hardware mapping of the machines subsytsems, notably the CGA >addressing. >No decision of BG or MS could have changed this on the IBM< PC. >On other hardware, such as the Victor 9000/ACT Sirius, MS-DOS >had no 640Kb limit, if enough RAM was fitted then MS-DOS (or >CP/M-86) could have over 900Kb available.
Was the CGA available in the early PC days (the five-slot, 64k motherboard-with-cassette-port)? I don't remember hearing about it until mid-1982. I was aware at the time that other clones, like the Sanyo, allowed for around 768K, but at the time, even 64k was considered ample, so nobody questioned his comment then. Hell, a lot of machines in 1981 were leaving the factory with 16K and people thought that was fine... until the Commodore 64 came out.
Turtle
---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Visit the Weightless Dog Home Page! http://www.charm.net/~turtle * *** Ask me about Lotus Notes, digital video, Volvos and the blues! *** ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>: [...] >>: QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K of memory should >>: be enough for anybody.'' What did you mean when you said this? >>: >>: ANSWER: I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No
>>So who is Bill Gates interviewing here?
>I don't see how he can get out of this one now... it's been reported >from too many otherwise-reliable sources. I used to have a copy of a >very early requote of it, but cannot find it now. It was in response >to questions about the DOS memory architecture, and of course BG was >defending his/MS's choice.
>Turtle
So the President of IBM once thought there MIGHT be a use for three or four mainframe computers throughout the world. So fifteen year old predictions turn out to be wrong. Point being?
Donald W. McArthur Dona...@ix.netcom.com **************************** "My wife and I tried two or three times in the last forty years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop."
>Except, of course, the 640Kb limit has nothing to do with BG or MS, >nor in fact much to do with MS-DOS. PC-DOS (and MS-DOS for IBM PC >clones) _enforces_ the 640Kb limit of the machine's architecture. >The actual limit comes from the choice of the 8086/8088 and the >hardware mapping of the machines subsytsems, notably the CGA >addressing.
>No decision of BG or MS could have changed this on the IBM< PC. >On other hardware, such as the Victor 9000/ACT Sirius, MS-DOS >had no 64
