Moore's Law
"I just bought my computer last month, and it's already out of date..."
(Everybody who's ever bought a computer)
On the outside, the Windows-based computer and its predecessors haven't changed much in the last 25 years, but if you look underneath the hood the changes have been profound.
|
Year |
Micro-processor |
Transistors
on |
Processor Speed (MHz) |
RAM |
Hard Drive (GB) |
Cost
for |
|
1978 |
8086 |
29,000 |
10 |
0.00064 |
0.002 |
$5,000 |
|
1982 |
286 |
134,000 |
12 |
0.001 |
0.03 |
$4,500 |
|
1987 |
386 |
275,000 |
20 |
0.002 |
0.100 |
$3,500 |
|
1991 |
486 |
1.2 million |
50 |
0.004 |
0.200 |
$3,000 |
|
1993 |
Pentium |
3.1 million |
120 |
0.008 |
1 |
$2,500 |
|
1997 |
Pentium 2 |
7.5 million |
300 |
0.032 |
4 |
$2,000 |
|
2000 |
Pentium 4 |
42 million |
800 |
0.064 |
10 |
$1,400 |
|
2003 |
Itanium |
410 million |
3,000 |
1 |
100 |
$1,200 |
| 2010 | Whoknowsium? | 5 billion | 11,000 | 16 | 16,000 | $750 |
| 2030 | Brainium? | 1 trillion | 1,300,000 | 67,000 | 2,500,000,000 | $200 |
The exponential increase of computing power demonstrated in the above table can be summed up by Moore's Law. Years ago Gordon Moore, the inventor of the computer microprocessor, theorized that the power of computers doubles approximately every one to two years. For years his prediction has held true.
Can you predict what the future might hold?