That's right IB standalone even works (badly) on a P133 with 32 MB (!!!). I use this as my back up of backup computer.. Over careful ? well.. maybe.. still no worry with your configuration.
if you have only IB running (I doubt it) all you need is any Pentium computer with 64MB.
If you have more programs to run (charting, analysis, browser etc...) then 128MB is the way to go as a minimum which is very usable.
Obviously the more programs you use at the same time the more memory you need.
However, you may improve your computer systems with a couple of tools..
Win95/98 systems use this :
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/cb.htm
select the 'game setting' it will improve your system performance a lot, because Windows will use less memory for unnecessary things for trading.
A computer is multipurpose, but the default settings of the OS are not friendly to applications for traders. You dont need a big disk cache for instance, you need maximum memory for chart analysis etc..
Win95/98/NT/2000 systems might consider this tool too :
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/maxmem.htm
this is a memory defragmenter. A similar tool exists for your hard disk. Fragmented memory is very very bad for traders because we usually analyse massive continuous data (charts) with complex component based applications.
This defragmenter will help a lot for systems with 128MB and less.
It removes unnecessary program code from active memory and leave more space to your trading application.
Usually a trader starts up his programs and they stay there for hours. Programs loaded by the system are less used and take up unnecessary space.
128MB is enough for IB standalone version (I even run several IB sessions with this amount of memory. I do use the tools mentioned above. BTW they are 100% free, not even adware. I really recommend them).
neo