A year or so ago every review of new software you read prominently mentioned the amount of hard drive real estate necessary to install the new program. Reviewers ranted and raved about how much space the latest Windows programs hogged. Letters to the editor steamed with outrage over software publishers expecting users to devote 10 to 12 MB to bloated programs. Much was made over Windows NT needing 70 +/- MB to load and OS/2 needing 40 +/- MB. I was a bit outraged myself and my 240 MB hard drive was soon overpowered by my blood lust for great new Windows programs overloaded with the proverbial bells and proverbial whistles I wanted to possess but rarely actually used.
So what happened to all this noise? Recently in one of the big computer magazines I read comparative reviews of SmartSuite, MS Office, and the Corel/WordPerfect office suite and nowhere was it mentioned how much disk space these applications need. Apparently this hard drive real estate issue has become so insignificant that it doesn't need to be mentioned in a 3000 word comparative review of the three best selling software packages on the market. And believe me, these are MegaByte Monsters! These are hard drive hogs! I'll admit my 240 MB system has given way to 4, 4 GB SCSI drives with a tape backup system, CD burner, and a ZipDrive to store all the neat stuff I have to have. Oh, yeah, I've also got about 500 CDs that can hold about a half a gig each. All right, I'm spoiled but still over 100 MB to install MS Office (just the good parts, mind you) is scary. I tend to get nervous when I get down around 500 MB available on my C drive and loading Office chewed up an impressive amount of drive space. It's been a while since I worried about drive space but, after loading Office I felt that old uncomfortable feeling creep up the bak of my neck.
Am I the only one still awed by the size of these programs? I'll admit that with my present storage capabilities I'm not nearly as worried as when I had only a 240 MB hard drive and boxes and boxes of floppies. I'm not the only one still shocked but attitudes toward large programs have definitely changed. Part of the reason is that hard drives are rapidly getting bigger and cheaper. Presumably the big-time reviewers all have huge hard drives and don't notice the huge size of programs today. But I think a big part of the reason less importance is placed on program size is the increased use of CDs. I've got fonts, clip art, dictionaries, maps, &c.; on CDs and most new programs are available completely or only on CD. This even takes the pressure off programs that aren't available on CD. I find it interesting that most of my CDs aren't anywhere near full. A CD can hold around 580 MB of data but most CDs published today contain far less.
CD drives will get faster again relieving the pressure on hard drive real estate. With a fast CD, my tape drive, my 4, 4 GB SCSI drives and my ZipDrive I'm in fine shape (you think I'll eat these words in a few months?). The only reason I really need those new SCSI gig drives I want my wife to get me for Christmas is purely the lust for new computer toys and the acquisitive hardware and shrink-wrap urge that led me into computer journalism in the first place.
A year or so ago every review of new software you read prominently mentioned the amount of hard drive real estate necessary to install the new program. Reviewers ranted and raved about how much space the latest Windows programs hogged. Letters to the editor steamed with outrage over software publishers expecting users to devote 10 to 12 MB to bloated programs. Much was made over Windows NT needing 70 +/- MB to load and OS/2 needing 40 +/- MB. I was a bit outraged myself and my 240 MB hard drive was soon overpowered by my blood lust for great new Windows programs overloaded with the proverbial bells and proverbial whistles I wanted to possess but rarely actually used.
