An apology to Bill Gates
Like many others on the ‘Net, I’ve often repeated the old saw that His Billness decided in the Dark Ages of computing (the early 80s) that 640k should be enough for anyone. It appears that, in the words of the Mythbusters crew, that one’s well and truly busted. There’s no evidence he said that, and he did realise at the time that the whole 640k thing would place a limit on growth. He did admit later to being surprised at how quickly that limit was reached, though.
So, Bill: I’m sorry for telling people you made that call.
This has always been an interesting one… I’ve been watching Bill talk at company events for the last 13 years, every presentation he gives has an overtone of Moore’s Law and the opportunities that are ahead of us given the availability of more memory, processor power and network bandwidth.
Bill would probably be the last person on the planet to suggest that any number was enough for any of these dimensions – but this “quote” somehow seems to have surfaced and stuck.
Comment by Oliver Bell — 8 September 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Thanks for clearing that one up Colin. Once these things take hold there’s no stopping them.
Comment by Miraz Jordan — 28 September 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Amazingly, not everything you read on the Net is true!
Comment by colin — 29 September 2008 @ 6:08 am