memories.dev

Computing has changed a lot since the 1980s. Back then, a Commodore 64 with 64 kilobytes of RAM was the best you could get. By the late 1980s, PCs with 1 megabyte of RAM were common. In the early 1990s, a 486 with 4 megabytes of RAM was exciting, and by the mid-1990s, 16 megabytes of RAM was impressive.

Chat applications have always been important in computing. In the 1990s, IRC clients used around 400 kilobytes of RAM. This was about 6% of the total memory on a typical computer with 8 megabytes of RAM. Now, chat applications like Slack and Discord can easily use over 1 gigabyte of RAM. This is still around 6% of the total memory on a modern iMac with 24 gigabytes of RAM.

Even though memory usage has increased, there are ways to optimize it. While there are alternative clients and exotic solutions like forcing macOS to compress RAM, simpler methods can be just as effective. These optimizations help reduce the memory footprint of chat applications, making better use of system resources.

From the Commodore 64 to modern iMacs, the proportion of memory used by chat applications has stayed about the same. Whether it is making art, playing games, or chatting online, the core activities remain the same even as technology advances. By understanding this historical context and applying simple optimizations, users can make the most of their computing resources.