According to this memory
map, the 64K address space of the Z80 was
split into 16K ROM and 48K
RAM for the Spectrum. A total of 7539 bytes (about
7.3K) are reserved for the
screen and
various other things, leaving slightly
over 40K for the user to work with.
That's only about a sixth of the RAM
"eaten", and most of it is required by the
hardware (which only has one "screen
mode"). I think we can agree that is
reasonable.
Noteworthy is that the OS
- such as it was on a home micro - was entirely
stored in that 16K ROM and thus
didn't count against the 48K. It required a
couple of hundred bytes of the RAM
for temporary variables and state, and
that was it. And that was perfectly
normal at the time. I think the BBC Micro
was a bit heavier, but it could also
shrink the screen memory to 1K (teletext
mode, text only) to make best use of
the 32K RAM it came with - while the
biggest screen modes required over
16K.
That approximate ratio also applies to my iPhone 3G and my new Android
phablet. They use a few hundred megabytes of the internal storage for the OS
and firmware, leaving the great majority available for the user's apps, music,
photos and other stuff. I never even came close to running out of space on
my
iPhone, although I ended up not using it as an iPod, which undoubtedly
helped.
But neither device would be able to store Windows 8 and Office, even
in
"compressed for installation disc" form.
Of course we already knew that
Windows, as with other Micro$oft software
products, is horribly bloated.
Now, however, it is going to actually impinge
on the usablity of a
Micro$oft hardware product. It will be
entertaining to watch the
fallout - from a safe distance.
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