Bergamot, I think you are probably correct to bring up the possibility that there are narrative/narrator reasons for some math error – I've seen the web page you reference before and it is worth a look. At least some errors in math or computer issues likely go purposely unremarked in the narration just as, say, bunches of Lenz's misuses or mispronounciation of words are allowed to pass without a hord of "(sic)" markings. (I believe that DFW has also been shown to have a few errors in his non-fiction "Everything and More," although they are over my head. But to my mind, the math of multiple infinities is way tougher than, say, Pemulis summarizing some basic calculus-level stuff that Wallace clearly had enough math background to be unlikely to completely mess up unintentionally through several drafts.) I think this grain-of-salt approach is worth keeping in mind for things like the "RAM" use issue: apfEID, the basic understanding of "RAM" that you mention is hardly high level computer knowledge, and has been entry-level basic knowledge for anyone who learned anything at all about computers in the last several decades: I find it way more plausible that DFW is intentionally playing with the nature of trying to permanently memorize something than that he misunderstood the term, which would be akin reading a novel in which a character adds 2 plus 2 and gets 5 and assuming this meant the novelist didn't understand basic addition.
As for his computer/tech knowledge and predictived abilities, while DFW definitely makes some mistakes and definitely does not have perfect predictive abilities, I think it is useful not only to keep in mind the possible narrator issues Bergamot mentions, but also (and with only limited examples given here):
-how much he gets astonishingly RIGHT from the perspective of writing mostly around 1994. The modern "web" (via HTML and the first "browsers") was literally appearing for the first time around the time he was finishing the novel, and his interlace stuff and "teleputer" stuff is nicely assumed as part of the daily life of people. He is aware that terms like "HD" are going to become standard, which was not common talk. He pictures a media world devided between things like "spontaneous disseminations" and focused downloads (and he is generally in the ballpark on size things: While DVD recordable disks have a standard capacity of 4.7GB, the size of a video file depends, among other things, on its length, on whether it is truly "broadcast HDTV" specifications (the 16:9 aspect ratio that calculates out to 1920×1080 pixels) or a different source/aspect ratio of equal detail, etc, and a quick look at the source video files in a number of formats will show "hour" long tv episode lengths taking, usually, several hundred MB, generally less than 1GB.) This is completely leaving aside the insights about the NATURE of spectation/entertainment that he is working on, that is, how he tries to foresee our current EXPERIENCE of the media environment (as immersive/addictive/etc).
-stuff he purposely exaggerates for effect, such as the ridiculous Yushityu subsidized year name, or the baroque histories of video telephony or the end of broadcast TV, all of which is c/w the general hyperbolic-to-the-point-of-annularity elements like ONAN, the concavity, subsidized time itself, etc.
-how he occasionally seems to purposely introduce anachronism or backwards tech, whether to protect himself from certain errors or for other narrative purposes. I have mentioned the Eschaton computer. A more important one might be the issue of phones: beyond his videophony rant, he goes into a bit of detail about the ancient hand-me down phone in Hal's room, and protects himself further by noting early on that the ETA kids are limited on what tech they are allowed to have at school/in their rooms. Somewhere around the time of the climax of Lenz's dog killing (somewhere around page 575), he points out that cel phones are banned at Ennett House, which seems to assume cel phones are otherwise common for even these mostly poor and at rock bottom of addiction types, which was in no way true in 1996 – so he both fairly accurately anticipates the direction of telephone communication, yet does a decent job of picking primary locales for his story where he can fairly realistically ignore most of this tech when it isn't key to his interests: The tennis students and addicts are all people who we realisticially can expect to spend less time immersed in video and communication tech than most people because of the nature of their situations as top athletes or early-stage recoveiring addicts. -how much about video, communication, and computer tech format debates were either hugely up in the air circa the writing of IJ and/or remain up in the air even now: Whether the future of media dissemination would be primarily by hardwire (cable) or airwave (satellite) or internet was a big debate in a film course I was in around 1994, and is still actively being fought today, as is the question of how internet itself will be delivered in the future: citywide wireless vs. cable vs. dsl, etc. Not to mention the whole Netflix-vs-digitial streaming-vs-iTunes-store methods of choosing to view non-"network" content. CD-ROMs may have been common, but the question of whether writable CD's or more traditional cartridge formats (a ZIP disk is, ultimately, built on the same idea as an old floppy disk: magnetic media in a casing) would win out, not to mention whether/how quickly other forms of storage (net, etc) would take over. When the first iMac came out in 1998, two years after IJ, it was considered radical to the point of possible fatal flaw that it had a CD drive but no traditional disk drive! In this environment, it is hard for me to see DFW as being naive in his various and often playful descriptions of a possible future.
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