1992. That was the time 386DX machines ruled. Every home and office had one. These pedestrian computing devices came standard with 640KB; you’d be lucky to have 1MB RAM. Only those who drove Ferarris had 2MB or 4MB monsters back then.
It was also during that time, the most graphically amazing game was Comanche Maximum Overkill. That award-winning helicopter simulator game slowed down the 386DX, but performed superbly on the emerging 486DX2-66. Too bad for the legions who were stuck with standard 386-based desktops. They made do with utterly lethargic 20fps frame rates.
Then enterprising programmers came up with the craziest solutions to bring the performance of superior machines to the lowly 386DX. First among them was RamDoubler which claimed to use compression technologies to effectively increase the amount of system RAM. Then there was that hoax application 386to486.com which robbed users of 30 seconds of startup time in exchange for the installation of a phoney “486 chip”. SoftRAM subsequently centered the fray, alleging to increase RAM up to 8X normal capacity. Now What really made me grin was that Voodoo Emulator. With this app, gamers thought that they actually transformed their pathetic SVGA cards into Voodoo accelerator chips.
Gee’z. Useless software that never worked. (But I was suckered into installing them!)
Today, those of my generation look back to that era as the period of snakeoil software peddlers who sold bits of code that not only underdelivered but actually slowed down PC performance. Do you think software vendors still attempt pulling fast ones today?
You betcha.
Every nook and cranny of the web still remains infested with flashy sites that sell applications reminiscent of last decade’s snakeoil. While no longer called “RAM Doublers” or “Voodoo Emulators”, these new apps promise stellar performance increases but actually do no such thing.
Leading the pack are Registry Optimizers that “compact Win7 registry by eliminating redundant or obsolete keys. Think removing a few extra bits and bytes will make a difference on 7200 RPM drives? Think again.
And what about those SSD drive optimizers? Pure scam. SSDs do not require defragmentation due to the new file storage techniques deployed in solid state devices. Run TSRs that defragment the drives will probably slow down the system due to overhead.
Have you installed any Memory Optimizers like MemTurbo? That won’t speed up your system. Dumping data from fast ram to slow hard disks creates bottlenecks, not speed increases. More snakeoil. Want to boost speed? Buy more memory. 8GB will make your system outpace any desktop crammed to the hilt with system optimizer software!
I guess that for as long as we have relatively buggy OSes like Windows, there will always be a market for worthless ‘optimizers’. Faster chips or hard disks won’t help if the OS hobbles the setup. The optimal solution is to get an average hardware setup with a solid OS. Like Linux. Or the MacOS.
Got any snakeoil apps on your system? Clear them out. And get a mac
