"Memory Space" - What is it?

[monkey0506]

The past few days my parents have both made several references to something called "memory space."  I don't know about you, but I've never heard of such a thing.  Does it mean RAM?  Or is it something to do with the hard drive?

The questions flooded my mind, but I'm not Noah, and I forgot to build an ark.  So I'm here drowning in my thoughts...and they keep talking about it.

"The reason that computer runs so slow is because it doesn't have enough memory space..."
"Michael, if I buy an external hard drive, would that fix the problem of her memory space being almost full?...Well...she probably doesn't have enough memory space to plug it in."
"You need to quit installing all those games or you're going to run out of memory space..."

I figured, maybe some of the brilliant minds around here can help me.  Please...if you know what memory space is...tell me.  I would really love to know what my parents are talking about.  All this time I thought I was the computer literate one in this household (my brother is computer literate, but he's out on his own)...and I don't even know what memory space is, while my parents so obviously do.  I'm begging you.  Tell me what this thing is.

[ManicMatt]

Ha ha! They probably picked that up from "memory cards" for the playstation, at a guess.

EDIT: Which reminds me of the time I went around a mate's house and said "Dam I forgot my memory card!"

[monkey0506]

Well the fact that my mom used it to refer to the HDD and then said something about her (my little sister) not having enough "memory space" to install an external HDD all in a period of less than 2 minutes...it really kind of caught me off guard.

[ildu]

They're all mixed up. They obviously talk about RAM as a performance booster and HD as actual space.

[RickJ]

Hehe, Monkey you have me wondering if this is a joke or if I am just getting old..   Ok assuming your question is on the level I'll give you my definition of "Memory Space".

Technically speaking, from my point of view, "memory space" is more or less synomous with  "address space".   If you were designing a mother board or embedded computer board then at some point you would need to allocate ranges of memory addresses to different functions or categories.  You would need to allocate some space for the ERPOM or FLASH memory from which the computer initially boots and which contains the BIOS, perhaps you would allocate some memory to CMOS memory.   Also some hardware devices, not as common as it once was, may be mapped to a portion of memory.  And of course the RAM memory needs to allocated to a range of addresses also. 

Each of these categories could be referred to as a memory spaceor address space.  The memory addresses and control signals would be decoded acording to the kind of memory or devices allocated to the particular space.   In a sense it's something like creating partitions on a harddisk and assigning each to a different type of file system.  I think you get the idea here but clearly this is not what your parents were talking about.  It seems to me they meant to say "RAM" or "Memory".   

I suppose you know this next part but in case you or some else doesn't here goes.   When you start an application the program is copied from the hard drive to RAM memory where the CPU can execute it.  Modern day computers are able to load different portions of a program as they are needed so that is is not necessary to load the entire program every time it is activated.  This makes programs start faster and use less memory. 

In a PC you can reduce your memory usage by eliminating all those programs that are started when you bootup windows.   On my machine for example, the only programs that are automatically started at boot time are SYSTRAY and EXPLORER.   Ther are any number of freeware p[rograms out there that will allow you to keep unwanted and unnecessary programs froom starting at boot time.   I use something called STARTCOP but ther are many others.

"The reason that computer runs so slow is because it doesn't have enough memory space..."

Current PC operating systems alow you to run multiple programs simultaneously.  This accomplished by time sharing the computer between all the programs.  The more programs you the run the more memory is used.  If the amount of memory required to run the desire programs exceeds the amount of physical memory available then some memory is freed by temporarily coping it's contents to the hard disk (i.e. swap file).    Disk access is much slower than RAM access.   Also if you have a lot of programs runnig then they are also consuming CPU time as well.   

"Michael, if I buy an external hard drive, would that fix the problem of her memory space being almost full?...Well...she probably doesn't have enough memory space to plug it in."

This seems to be an inaccurate statement.  Installing an additional hard drive shouldn't consume any additional memory.

"You need to quit installing all those games or you're going to run out of memory space..."

Only if those pesky things are started up automatically  at  boot time.

Hoipe this helps...

[monkey0506]

Rick...I hope you didn't take me too seriously, but based on your reply I would say that you did.  I basically knew all of that, although I probably couldn't have written it in such a well organized article as you did.  Thanks for the "help".

[woodz]

"Memory Space" is a term we who areÃ,  unfortunate enough to be parents use to inflict misery onto our kids, we watch you for hours having fun on the computer knowing fine well we probably suck at the games you play or the fact you have friends and we don't coz ours legged it at the first signs of smelly nappies
so we use the term "Memory Space" to remove all your toysÃ, 

[RickJ]

It's OK Monkey, what I worte may be of use to someone else, besides what else couold I do at 1:30 in the morning?   

[monkey0506]

Interesting woodz...so...the goal of parents is to make their children miserable...I KNEW IT!!!

And Rick, I have often been up at 1 - 2 a.m. working on my game.  When the parents and the little sisters are asleep...the house is quiet...that's when I've had some of my biggest coding breakthroughs.  Nice work!

[Khris]

Hehe, this reminds me of a hilarious site: http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

It's a baffling phenomenon that in today's society an individual, who might in other circumstances be considered smart and wise, can sit down in front of a computer screen and instantly lose every last shred of common sense he ever possessed.