UNIX anniversary

Joined
Jan 18, 2017
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524
It makes me uncomfortable that my brain keeps repeating "damn it's been fifty years already?" lol

I haven't been following tech like I used to but I can't help wonder how software and hardware will develop over the next two decades.
 

jgreco

Resident Grinch
Joined
May 29, 2011
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18,681
Well, if you consider that in 1995, a 32MB PC with a sub-100MHz CPU and a 1GB HDD was considered a monster machine at, I dunno, maybe a thousand bucks, and now we have the Rasperry Pi Zero 2 W with 512MB and 4GHz of CPU, with a 32GB microSD for $20, I think it is easy to see the trend.
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Messages
524
mmmm but i cannot, the jump in processing power from 1985 to 1995 was substantial, the jump from 1995 to 2005 was also substantial. Now we are some what shifting HOW we try to get more processing power is what i'm seeing. Apple making their own CPU's again, Intel adding high power cores and low power cores to work together, AMD trying to go to the moon with processing cores and ARM.
God only know what else someone has on a lab bench somewhere.
I can't even say the price of computers has come down particularly if you look at the current cost of new hardware, the entry cost however has basically disappeared with the help of Raspberry Pi Foundation.
 

jgreco

Resident Grinch
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
18,681
Well, then, "try harder" :smile: 48-core CPU's and terabytes of RAM and petabytes of flash are five- and six-figure propositions today, just as quad core and a hundred gigabytes of RAM and petabytes of HDD were a decade (maybe 15 yrs) ago. Really, if you came up to me in 1980 and showed me a microSD card, a gigabyte? Seriously? 256 gigabytes? Smokin' something?
 

danb35

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Aug 16, 2011
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Apple making their own CPU's again
...which really isn't "again"--until now, Apple always used someone else's CPUs (lots of other custom silicon, but never their own CPUs). First Rockwell, then Motorola, then IBM, and then Intel--only with the M1 have they been using their own CPUs for desktop/laptop (as opposed to mobile).

But yes, I remember a 5 1/4", 5 MB hard drive costing somewhere around $1k. Now, I can store 2000 times as much data on a device smaller than my thumbnail, for about US$25. I have a book on building your own CCD astro-camera, that tells you how to build a monochrome, 755 x 242-pixel (182 kilopixels) CCD camera, allegedly for about US$350 in 1994 (supposedly, about $650 today). Today, I can buy a color, air-cooled, 20MP astro-camera for about the same money. Computers make me feel old.
 
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