I remember articles in computer magazines that said that no average user would need the awesome power of an 8 MHz 80286 chip. No, that power would be reserved for servers. I've seen virtually the same predictions for every new generation of Intel CPU. Each writer failed to allow for the ever increasing demands by users (and Windows) for more power.

For some of my computer science classes, I graphed out a trend mapping different versions of Windows operating systems and the minimum, recommended, and actual memory requirements. The minimum requirements are what Microsoft said was the absolute minimum amount of memory you needed to boot the OS. The actual memory was what you really needed to boot the OS and accomplish anything. I used Windows 3.0 as the starting point. Microsoft said the minimum memory requirement was 2 MB and the recommended memory was 4 MB. However, to accomplish anything, you actually needed at least 8 MB.

My examination showed that every new version of Windows at least doubled the memory requirements. Here's a rundown of the recommended memory requirements for the different version of Windows over the years:

3.0 - 4 MB
3.1 - 8 MB
95 - 16 MB
NT 3.51 - 32 MB
NT 4 - 64 MB
2000 - 128 MB
XP - 256 MB

I first noted this trend 10 years ago and projected it well into the future. So far, it has held up remarkably well. As a result, I predict that the new version of Windows set for release next year will have a minimum memory requirement of 256 MB, a recommended memory requirement of 512 MB, and an actual requirement of 1 GB.

Likewise, your prediction that Windows 2010 will require a 20 GHz processor is likely accurate. The same trend applies to CPU requirements and hard drive capacity. Basically, upgrades to Windows over the years have driven people to keep upgrading their hardware to ever higher levels of power just to maintain an acceptable level of performance. Back in 1989, I actually got into an argument with a coworker who questioned why any average user would ever need the power of a 386 processor. After all, a 286 (with 640 KB of RAM and a 40 MB hard drive) was perfectly acceptable to run MSDOS. All of that changed with Windows. Personally, I think the hardware manufacturers should line up in a public square and take turns kissing Bill Gates' ass for driving consumer demand for new and more powerful computers.