Memory Footprint - Usage Trend

Usage Trend

During the 1990s, computer memory became cheaper and programs with larger memory footprints became commonplace. This trend has been mostly due to the widespread use of computer software, from large enterprise-wide applications that consume vast amounts of memory (such as databases), to memory intensive multimedia authoring and editing software. To tackle the ever increasing memory needs, Virtual Memory systems were introduced that divide the available memory into equally-sized portions and loads them from "pages" stored on the hard-disk on an as-and-when required basis.

This approach to support programs with huge-memory-footprints has been quite successful. Most modern operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple's Mac OS X, and all versions of Linux and Unix provide Virtual memory systems.

Read more about this topic:  Memory Footprint

Famous quotes containing the word usage:

    Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.
    Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)