By Gary Kirchherr
A tidbit at the end of Bob Schwabach's Sept. 1 column caught my attention: "Ram Doubler 2 is out for Mac and PowerMac." And I wasn't pulled in just by the erroneous references (it's "RAM Doubler" and "Power Mac"). I was frankly surprised that Connectix bothered to upgrade the utility at all.
RAM Doubler made a big splash when it appeared on the market a couple of years ago. The pitch was that the utility provided the equivalent of more random-access memory by using "real" RAM - the kind on hardware memory chips - more efficiently. RAM Doubler's combination of RAM compression, disk-caching and more efficient allocation of unused memory allowed one to "double" your RAM. In theory.
I'm sure RAM Doubler has useful applications. But the hype - both in Connectix's ads and the Macintosh media - overlooked a few crucial caveats.
One, the RAM compression in the original RAM Doubler is slow, and slows down computers noticeably. (Connectix claims the new version's compression is up to twice as fast.)
Two, the disk-caching scheme. Schwabach said in his article that RAM Doubler sets aside space on a hard disk that the computer treats as extra RAM. Big deal. This feature is available to everyone with the current Macintosh operating system as "virtual memory." Whatever you call it, it's really slow.
The third and most important potential for problems stems from RAM Doubler using existing free RAM more efficiently. If increased efficiency won't help - if your computer actually needs all its RAM it has - you're out of luck. Without real RAM to call on, RAM Doubler will result to disk-caching. Suddenly, this panacea for RAM shortages has slowed your computer to a crawl.
An update to this utility would have been welcome and I would have looked into it more closely, but the computing world - specifically, the RAM-pricing world - is different than it was when RAM Doubler was released. Back then, the 4-megabyte RAM chip I bought for my old Performa 475 cost $180. That same 4-megabyte chip today costs less than $40; a 16-megabyte chip can be had for about $120. So why spend $50 for a product that emulates additional RAM when I can get the real thing so cheap?
In fairness to Connectix, as much as I disdain RAM Doubler, I love Speed Doubler. This product has three system extensions, but the one that makes it worth buying is Speed Emulator. This software replaces the Macintosh system's translation coding that allows you to run programs designed for a 68K Mac on a PowerPC. But Apple's emulation is slow. Connectix's is noticeably faster, so much so that Speed Doubler is a must-have for anyone with a PowerPC.
Unfortunately, a fly has fallen into the ointment within the past few months - the Speed Copy extension doesn't work properly over networks that use the newest versions of AppleShare. The insidious bug corrupts files copied over a network, but users won't notice until they actually try to use the file. Your options are installing a patch that disables Speed Copy in certain conditions, or just removing Speed Copy altogether. The second option isn't as drastic as it sounds, since System 7.5.3's own file-copying is fast anyway.