Computers Allow Us To Accomplish More With Less, and It’s Only Getting Better: New at Reason

Researchers have figured out how to fit even more transistors into even less space.

Marian Tupy writes:

Computers have come a long way since the days of ENIAC. The first computer was a $6-million-dollar giant that stretched eight feet tall and 80 feet long, weighed 30 tons and needed frequent down time to replace failing vacuum tubes. A modern smart phone, in contrast, possesses about 13 hundred times the power of ENIAC and can fit in your pocket. It also costs about 17 thousand times less. (With a deal like that, no wonder that there are now more mobile phone subscriptions than there are people on the planet).

The drop-off in the price of computing power is so steep that it’s difficult to comprehend. A megabyte of computer memory cost 400 million dollars in 1957. That’s a hefty price tag, even before taking inflation into account. In 2013 dollars, that would be 2.6 billion. In 2015, a megabyte of memory cost about one cent.

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