Webuser Forums: Sizes of the Times(Software/Memory Madness) Past Present and Future

As we don't have a Technical discussion section (This Feels out of sorts in the General area) so I have Posted this here

These Very rough numbers reflect What in Disk/Disk sizes Historically since the Start to the PC Games Era for popular best selling game Needs

The First generation (70 s) were 256 K DOS (1 disk) or a Cassette (with 16K of a "game")
Though Machine code was coming in (at first for Video Game Cartridges) Later In 70's early 80's for the early PCs (Tandy) so much more was sqeeezed into the Space Machines Had a design Limit of 640k Memory (universal) Graphics Were Dictated By drivers (Not Cards)

Beginning of the 80s saw the first compressed Files (Later To become PKZIP and ZIP files ect)

A Big Game (size-wise) for me was on 2 cassettes...And the first Adventures (with "Graphics") appeared on the Shelves ( 2 x 1.44MB floppies" compressed <--Really)!

In the Mid 80's Cassettes were History Floppies appeared Memory sizes crept up (Smartly for the Time)
32k (Acorn,Speccy),64k ( Amstrad)....Topped out by the imported SX Japanese machines @ 256 K good for games. Nothing else!

Then Somewhere in this Period they Started expanding the Adventure Games (Still in Basic) Were seeing Box sets of 4 to 6 disks! The smaller commercial games were turning to Machine code For Graphics and Disk Access times were coming down sharply almost yearly as Better Spec computers Came Out (albeit at a rich mans price) 25 Mhz-33Mhz! First cheap hard drives of 256 MB size (?) to act as a Buffer (RAM Not available yet...Still exists as "Virtual drives") 640K limit still in play

The Final straw came with the issue of an Ultima Adventure Set with 20 x 1.44 Mb Disks (Load them when prompted to continue) Woe betide if they got lost or As with all the Software (bar cartridges) you have a Dud Disk Or Tape!!...Very common! No wonder People made Backups or copies. That's the Root of the Piracy Market right there!

Software developers were starting to Use the install some key files to Hard drives method (WIN 3.1)/Amiga and The Data was still on the Floppy So that Speeded things Up (and reliability) only Data disks were still subject to Damage. and general abuse. Reduced the disk size to about 5 or 6 (Basic was going out of use fast)
Then The CD arrived. The Floppy Did not Know what Hit it, Entire games were on the 1 disk (640K to start (and in Machine code) Thus it could now load the entire disk at speed into the Hard drive (hence the "Drive space| requirement issue) RAM Chips where just Starting to appear and The Clever Developers had Got around the 640K Barrier and Superior Spec. (and Expensive) games were arriving almost daily and the multi "Floppy "Game was consigned to the Bin, replaced by the New fangled CD.(Windows 95?) with a capacity of ca 200 MBs to start (almost 139 Floppy disks!!)

First Graphics cards were also starting to appear to handle the Higher Resolution monitors at 320 x 320 Later 640x640 or a Massive 800x800 pixels (if you could afford it)? RAM on these were 4 MB and growing eventually to 16 MB!
Now it speeds Up.…
Windows 98 The DVD arrives Disk capacity now exceeds 1GB! Graphics RAM Goes to 32 and 64 Mb
And then somewhere between that date and Today DVD Rom s were rolled out as an even Higher capacity DVD
Maybe when XP Came into being?
Goes back to the old Virtual drive on the Disk method Though it handles all sorts of media both reading and writing to preinstalled files) and the Registry I don't think any "Save" data (to The Registry) was used Before the CD was used?
Somebody can correct me on that point

Size of the DVD Roms can Vary Typical size is 5 GB though it might hold compressed data for 4 or 5 times that Size!! 2 or 3 disk can hold Millions of individual files

The DVD may use a few hundreds MB of Drive space Perhaps 500 MB?
But the latest generation DVD ROM's Can access 15 GB (NO KIDDING!)Or more Hard drive space! without any effort, and still work efficiently...Mind you It needs 1 GB RAM or greater to pull off this trick
So here are the possible sizes measured In units of "Floppy Diskettes" of 1.44 MB
over the years {estimates)

Early Computer with floppy drive only (non PC)1@1.44mb- =1.44mb
Later Amiga or Commodore 2 @ 1.44mb-= 2.88Mb
Early PC BASIC 2 @ 1.44mb-= 2.88Mb = 2 @ 1.44 mb= 2.88mb (Optimised)
Early PC(compressed/Win 3.1) 2 @ 1.44mb-= 2.88Mb rising to 6 ish @ 1.44 mb= 8.64 mb (Optimised)
PC with CD (WIN 98 on) 4mb Graphics card,Virtual drivespace of 500 Mb, Install of 2 GB So Total is about 140 Floppies

And Lastly we come to a typical everyday Modern XP or Vista set up with DVD rom and 1 GB Ram Drive space (and an average Graphic card setup)
So my estimate For a highish end Game is 3470 floppies for the capacity on the CD Drive (early version)

And the Latest version (DVD rom) is 10400 floppies in capacity, typical (single disk)

I wonder how long the 2 disk DVD Rom Game will be in coming? Or have Microsoft Or a Hardware developer Going to try a different way of utilising the Drive space on the OS (Opportunity coming up with the New Windows 7 OS)
Miss that then it may be 2012 to 2014 before the window opens again and the CD/DVD technology will be almost 25 years Old! 3.5 inch. Floppies were History @ just 5 years. Same I think was true with the earliest 5.25 inch version?
Only way I think is pre-loaded dedicated Game/Utility drives to Buy or rent which slot in a Cartridge Slot or a Bluetooth type/USB link and the conventional Hard disk Is used as a Buffer together with the Virtual drive/RAM Expect them to open the Limits on that in the Next OS (for the 64 bit programs) Fitting above 3GB Memory is a Mystery area on both XP & Vista

I expect to see a 2GB RAM spec Game out in the Near Future? Though 99% of all Big RAM games still uses 1GB memory. Graphics card RAM Must be Upgraded to run these. 512 MB cards are coming into use a lot in the Past year though the Next generation games may be using 768 MB cards?

They cost a few hundred pounds now but as production demand Goes up they will reduced to the same Price as the 256 and 512MB cards In About 18 months to 2 years
Though When we get to that stage They'll have 1 GB RAM size Cards Filtering into the Market.(At the same price at the 768 MB cards Previously!)
Where will this Madness end?