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"But AtAT," so many of you have asked, "why no righteous indignation at the recently-posted system requirements for Mac OS X? After all, they are rather heftier than Apple initially promised." Well, folks, we're going to let you in on a little secret: system requirements for unshipping products are pretty much like presidential campaign promises. In other words, if you actually believe them, you've got no one to blame but yourself when they get shot all to hell.
See, we remember the uproar waaaaaay back when rumors were spreading that Rhapsody (for you young'uns, that's what we old timers called Mac OS X back when the project was launched in the late eighteenth century) was going to require a whopping 32 MB of RAM. At the time, the only people with that much RAM in their Macs were sultans, robber barons, and a few graphic artists. But instead of getting our knickers in a twist, we just shrugged it off; after all, we'd been waiting for Copland for so long (only to watch it get unceremoniously cancelled), we had a strange feeling that by the time Rhapsody ever saw the light of day, horseless carriages would dominate our city streets, torches would by replaced by machinery that harnessed the energy of lightning, and Macs would ship standard with the astronomical but required amount of 32 MB of RAM.
So that gives you a sense of historical context. Sure, prior to these latest requirements, Apple most recently stated that 64 MB of RAM would be enough. Now it's 128 MB (actually, it's been 128 MB since the last Stevenote, if you've been keeping up with your Apple press releases). Heck, instead of complaining, we're just hoping it doesn't double to 256 MB within the next six weeks. The simple fact is that by the time Apple actually gets around to shipping new Macs with Mac OS X pre-loaded and ready to rock, obviously 128 MB of installed RAM will be the standard even in the cheapest iMacs. And for those of you with otherwise Mac OS X-compatible systems that don't have enough RAMmy goodness, memory is dirt-cheap these days. With 128 MB going for less than fifty bucks, it's hard for us to stay mad at the Mac OS X development gang for giving themselves a little extra breathing room.
Then again, it's not just the necessary RAM that seems a little on the high side. Have you noticed how much disk space Apple says you'll need to install and run its next-generation OS? "At least 1 GB of available space." Okay, true, just as RAM is less expensive now than ever before, disk space is cheap and plentiful. But 1 GB? The original iBooks only shipped with 3. Let's put it this way-- you know that software company from Redmond who always gets blasted (uh, mostly by us) for producing bloatware? Let's compare Mac OS X's system requirements to those of various current incarnations of Windows, shall we?
Now, granted, Microsoft has a history of, er, "stretching the truth" a little when it comes to minimum system requirements. (Windows 2000 Server on a Pentium 133? That's like trying to stuff sixteen pounds of baloney into a single surgical glove; it's messy, doomed to failure, and someone's probably going to get hurt in the process.) Still, it worries us to see Apple positioning an operating system that's going to be run on basic iMacs by kids and grandmothers with the same posted requirements as Microsoft's high-end, industrial-strength server OS. Sure, Mac OS X is also a high-end, industrial-strength server OS, which means Granny and little Timmy are in for one hell of a ride. Still, we expect Apple's going to have to weather a few media cries of "bloat!" before the year is up. Here's hoping the Cupertino crew can back up those requirements with some serious power, speed, and lickable fun.
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