The first practical home computers came into existence in the late 1970s. My first computer was an Osborne One that I purchased in 1982. It was suitcase-sized. This was shortly before the IBM PC and all its clones came along. My current computer is a Dell Inspiron. Let’s compare the two computer systems.
Osborne RAM: 64 kilobytes (roughly 64 thousand bytes).
Dell RAM: 12 gigabytes (roughly 12 billion bytes), almost 200,000 times greater.
Osborne disk capacity: Two 5-1/4" floppy drives, 90 kilobytes each.
Dell disk capacity: 1 terabyte internal drive and 4 terabyte external drive, total 5 terabytes, about 30 million times greater.
Osborne CPU: 8-bit CPU with a clock speed of 4 megahertz.
Dell CPU: 4-core 64-bit CPU with a clock speed of 3.3 gigahertz. Each 64-bit core runs 825 times faster than the Osborne's 8-bit CPU.
Osborne video: 5 inch, black and white, text-only analog monitor.
Dell video: 23 inch, high definition color graphics, flat-screen digital monitor.
Osborne price: $1800.
Dell price: Today, a system similar to mine (computer, monitor, external drive) can be had for about $600.
Obviously, the power of computer technology is growing exponentially. Meanwhile, the cost of computer technology is dropping fast. My current computer system is easily thousands of times more powerful than my first system yet cost one third as much. And we’re only at the beginning. Imagine what computers might be able to do in 100 years. Or 1000 years. Humans might be living in virtual worlds that are indistinguishable from what we consider the “real world,” which itself might be a virtual world.
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