The incredible order of magnitude changes in computers

[Guest]

In previous technologies of the industrial age, orders of magnitude change took time. How may years would it take to increase the horsepower of an internal combustion engine by 1,000%? But in the computer age, that rate of change is the norm when talking about change.

Consider: When I was 5 years old, IBM introduced the IBM 350 Storage System, Part of the IBM 305 RAMDAC system.



This got you 3.75 megabytes of storage.

A few weeks ago I bought a Microsoft Surface Pro on sale. A few days ago I popped in a microSDXC 256 gigabyte chip. So over 68,000 times as much storage as a 1956 IBM computer. And yet it is slightly smaller:



Imagine if you able to time-travel back to 1956 and show an IBM scientist that chip and explain that it contains 68,000 times more storage than his system, and costs (in 1956 dollars adjusted for inflation) a little north of ten bucks.

Now while that scientist is looking at what looks like a tiny piece of cardboard on you thumb, that has 68,000 times his storage capacity and costs a little over $10 in inflation adjusted dollars, remember he has trained his life to design an service a piece of storage that leases for (in 1956) $3,200 per month . And you're telling him than any schmuck in the world can plug that into a home computer that costs around $100 in 1956 dollars?



Would he believe you? Can you name any technology that shows a 68,000 fold increase coupled with a price drop to near nothingness?

In 1956 a Corvette costs around $3200 and made 240 horsepower if you were lucky. A base 2018 Corvette costs $55,495 and makes 455 horsepower. Give 1 horsepower the value of 1 megabyte, and a computer order of magnitude change would mean the Corvette should be making over sixteen million horsepower.

[_Some Schmo]

One of the best things about electronics is that it's the one set of products that is not only inflation-proof, it proves better to buy things about a year old (video cards!), because you'll generally get slightly less power for significantly less money than whatever's the latest/greatest.

ETA: In 2000, I bought a 61 inch rear projection TV for about $2200. This was prior to ubiquitous widescreens and high resolution. It was one of those TVs where if you got close enough, you could see subtle horizontal lines on the screen.

I was at Sam's Club last weekend and saw a 4K 70 inch flat screen for $800. I try not to think about all the money I've wasted on electronics over the years, but man, that one was tough to swallow, despite the fact that I feel very good that we got our money's worth out of that old monster.

It looks something like this:

[_Gunnar]

I read in Scientific American that just a couple of decades or so ago (perhaps even less), if one wanted to build a device that could do everything a modern smart phone can do, it would have required a case the size of the Washington Monument to hold all the necessary components.