Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

The relative power of computers I have owned

Well, it's not necessarily computers I've owned, but computers of which I've been a regular user over the past 20-odd years. Obviously work machines and so on don't count - we're talking about home computers here.

Why am I doing this? Dunno - just thought the numbers would be interesting, and also it shows how much computing power people have on their desks today. Relative CPU clock speeds (the most inaccurate indication of speed in the world, lest we forget) and memory quantities (where available) are given relative to the BBC Micro for each.

1982: Acorn BBC Micro, model B: 2MHz 6502, 32kB RAM, and later with a 1770-based floppy controller and drive capable of storing a few hundred kB per floppy. (relative power 1/1) 1992: PC-compatible, 33MHz 486DX, 4MB RAM (relative 16.5/128) 1995 (approx): upgraded above to 100MHz 486DX/4, by now also with 8MB of RAM (relative 50/256) 1997 (approx): upgraded above to 200MHz AMD K6 and possibly about 32MB of RAM (relative 100/1024) 2000: Toshiba Satellite 35 notebook, 500MHz Celeron, 128MB RAM (relative 250/4096) 2001: First completely new PC in nearly 10 years - AMD Athlon, 1533MHz, 256MB RAM (relative 766.5/8192) 2003: Mac addiction begins - Apple iBook, 800MHz PowerPC G3, 640MB RAM (relative figures totally pointless by now but for form's sake - 400/20480) 2003: (again) - Mac addiction continues - Apple 12" G4 PowerBook, 867MHz PowerPC G4, 640MB RAM (even more pointless, but what the hell - 433.5/20480) 2004: PC above now upgraded to 1GB of RAM for relative 766.5/32768. Video card alone has 128MB of memory and huge amounts of CPU power.

I must emphasise the pointlessness of the "relative power" figures given above as other advances mean that they become more and more of an understatement as the years go by. They're really just there for simple numerical comparison, as it's more or less impossible to work out exactly how much more power a G4 Mac has compared to a BBC Micro. One interesting point is that the BBC Model B cost £399 when new in 1982, and even without accounting for inflation it's interesting to think that if CPU-related bang-per-buck had stayed the same over the years, my most recent PC purchase would have cost £300,000...

Another reason for this exercise is that I've been pondering buying a dual 1.8GHz G5 PowerMac, and trying to comprehend exactly how much computing power is stuffed into it. When I look at the machines I used even a few years ago, the answer to that question is "more power than I can safely comprehend". And still people complain that they're slow!

Posted by mpk at February 27, 2004 1:09 PM | TrackBack