TidBITS:
Developed by Connectix, RAM Doubler was one of the most magical utilities of the early days of the Macintosh. As its name suggested, RAM Doubler promised to double the amount of usable RAM in your Mac, and amazingly, it generally delivered.
That was a big deal back in 1994 because RAM was shockingly expensive—$300 for an 8 MB SIMM at a time when I had 20 MB in my Centris 660AV. For $50, RAM Doubler would double whatever you had: 8 MB to 16 MB, or 20 MB to 40 MB. It was astonishing.
You young whippersnappers will now have to watch as us old farts exclaim, “I loved RAM Doubler!” It was freaking magic.
I believe I did buy RAM Doubler which seemed to kind of almost live up to its name, though my Performa still crashed a lot trying to launch Netscape Navigator when I still had the original (physical) 8MB installed.
Get off my lawn!
Pre Netscape RAM Doubler was magical. Once the Netscape era hit I think we had more of an OS multitasking issue.
I loved RAM Doubler. It was freakin’ MAGIC!
I concur, I loved RAM Doubler! It was freaking Magic!
and flying toasters!
Yes, a true classic extension. Couldn’t live without it in the early days.
RAM Doubler was indeed very helpful.
The only thing worse than hitting swap is running out of memory, for real.
(The best thing about owning old legacy Macs today is that you can max out the RAM for peanuts.
It’s trivial to buy 64 megs of RAM for, say, a Quadra.)