Final answer:
The limitation to only address up to 4 gigabytes of RAM is typically associated with 32-bit operating systems due to their 32-bit long memory addresses. For access to more memory, a 64-bit system is required.
Step-by-step explanation:
The concept in question is related to a technological limit whereby a device or system can only address up to 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM, which is primarily a limitation of 32-bit operating systems. In such systems, the maximum amount of memory that can be addressed is determined by the number of addressable locations, which is 2^32 (or approximately 4.29 billion) unique addresses. Since each address refers to a byte of memory, this means that the system can only directly access 4GB of RAM. This limitation comes from the fact that 32-bit processors use memory addresses that are 32 bits in length. To address more than 4GB of RAM, a system would need to have a 64-bit operating system and processor, which can theoretically access up to 16 exabytes of memory due to having a larger address space (2^64 addressable locations).