Did Bill Gates really say 640K ought to be enough for anybody?

June 23, 2008 — — Some of the most oft-repeated comments attributed to Bill Gates through the years were not uttered by Bill Gates. Take for instance “640K ought to be enough for anybody,” which he supposedly said in 1981 to note that the 640K bytes of memory in IBM’s PC was a significant breakthrough.

Who will ever need more than 640K?

Bill Gates denies making 1981 comment about limits of RAM needs, despite popular legend. Here’s the legend: at a computer trade show in 1981, Bill Gates supposedly uttered this statement, in defense of the just-introduced IBM PC’s 640KB usable RAM limit: “640K ought to be enough for anybody.”

How old is Bill Gates?

65 years (October 28, 1955)
Bill Gates/Age

How much RAM did Bill Gates say enough?

640K
Gates said that 640K of memory is all that anybody with a computer would ever need.

When did IBM say 640k ought to be enough for anyone?

IBM introduces the PC and, with Microsoft, releases DOS (“640K ought to be enough for anyone” — Bill Gates) In November 1995 the Washington Post published an article that contained a collection of quotations labeled “If They Only Knew.” The sayings were selected so that the speakers appeared to be foolish or wrong-headed. Below are three examples.

What did gates really say 640k is enough for anyone?

“I’ve got one for you,” messaged a hacker from Cambridge. “Some years back, Gates said ‘640K is more memory than anyone will ever need.’ Where do I pick up my software?” Dan emailed: “I win! Gates said once that ‘640K software is all the memory anybody would ever need on a computer.’ What do I get?” Susannah wrote from San Francisco: “Ha, Katz.

Why is 640k of memory enough for a computer?

In February 1988 the computer columnist Steve Gibson ascribed the belief that 640K was enough memory to the designers of the IBM PC as a group. The term Visicalc used below referred to a popular spreadsheet application [SGEN]: Unhappily, the original designers of the IBM PC felt that 640K of RAM would be more than anyone would ever need.

Why is the 640 KB memory limit a myth?

The “640 kB is enough” is a myth attributed to Gates. The blame for this should actually be placed at IBM’s feet, because the 640 kB limit was an architectural limitation imposed by IBM, who decided to load drivers in high mem starting at those addresses, in effect imposing a hardware ceiling on the memory available for OS and apps.