From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 12:03:16 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Securing data in memory (was "Locking physical memory (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <19981130180002.17576.qmail@nym.alias.net>
Message-ID: <v0313031bb28913ca52a4@[209.66.100.75]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 10:00 AM -0800 11/30/98, lcs Mixmaster Remailer wrote:

>There used to be a rule of thumb that you'd want roughly a megabyte
>per megahertz.  Today, with our 200+ MHz processors, we tend to have
>considerably less memory than this.  My Gateway PC from a couple of
>years ago came with a 200 MHz Pentium Pro but only 32 MB of memory.
>
>Most PCs today are not well balanced architecturally.  They should
>really have a couple hundred megabytes of memory.  Memory is cheap
>enough today that this can be added, but the motherboard configuration
>may limit the amount.  If you had this much memory, swapping to disk
>would be a smaller problem.

Some of us are more balanced...

My G3 Powerbook has 160 MB of RAM for a 240 MHz processor.

My recollection is that "Amdahl's Law" was only a rule of thumb within an
order of magnitude or so. I'm not a computer architect, so I don't what a
good ratio today would be.

--Tim May

"I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, just the way the President did."
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.