For my first job where I regularly used a computer, I noted one day that the 10 MB hard drive on my PC wasn't going to be big enough to hold the database I was creating for our client. My boss then went out and bought me a 20 MB external hard drive. I was the envy of the office. It measured 14x25x29 cm. (I just went out to my garage and measured it.)
This PC literally was a PC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer#PC) too, not even an XT or an AT. It might be in my garage as well. There are way too many computers and monitors out there, not to mention the six computers in the bedroom.
Oh wow. Those must be classics now! What do you do with all your computers?
My first was an IBM XT motherboard with a disk controller, 384KB expansion card, and CGA graphics card, all mounted in a home-built sheet-metal chassis. I later made a wooden case for it.
I'm afraid the ones in the garage are just taking up space. Three of them in the bedroom are functioning as furniture, more or less (two bedstands and one that's holding my regular desktop monitor at the right height), and two of them (desktop and laptop) are the ones I actually use. Some day I'd like to get all the hard drive contents consolidated onto storage media so I can recycle all the old machines.
We are in a similar situation and we just bought a 1 TB drive to try and put everything in one place. Let's see how long it takes for us to get around to it... heh
Sadly, no. I made it of veneered chipboard, stained a dark colour. Over time, the additional upgrades I installed required me to chip away some of the interior partitions, and eventually I bought a tower. What was nice about it was that it worked well as a sort of table.
I had a 10MB drive as part of an IBM XT Compatible, too.. my first "owned" computer, though I'd used Apple IIs from a previous school and friends for many years before that.. (side note: Apple Profile 5MB Hard drives are HUGE)..
I wonder where it will top out? Terrabytes? Petabytes?
I notice we have pretty much topped out in processor speed ~3Ghz. For most of the 70's through the 90's we were following Moore's law. Well, actually, his law states that the number of transistors in a processor would double every 18 months. As a result, we were doubling speed as well. For my first 3 computer upgrades, I went up on processor speed by a factor of 10 each time.
My first hard drive was 10 MB. I see this one has 450 GB and at Best Buy they have Terrabyte drives for under $100.
I wonder how things will be different in another 40 years? Of course, I had better be around to make the comparison!
It'll only top out when Moore's law does.. which I think is a long way off!
I know what you mean about Moore's law and processor speed, but it's deceiving.. Moore's law has continued unabated, and what used to manifest as a speed up has now, temporarily, spread laterally in # of cores. GPUs follow this as well, but because more cores = more speed, GPU speeds have more than doubled every year. I do think that sometime in the next 10 years we'll see a dramatic jump in processor speeds to 20 GHz or even 100 GHz or more, as various technologies come into play.. and so looking at a line of proc speeds over time, you'll see, if anything, Moore's law accelerating. 'Course, we'll only know if I'm right when it happens!
Best buy has lousy prices.. you can get multiple 15000 MB hard drives for $100.
OK curious now. Your profile says you live in the US, and you spell things with Z's instead of S's (e.g. realizing vs. realising), but you user the term 15000 MB instead of Terra byte.
Yes, Best Buy has bad prices, but sigh, in small town Iowa, not a lot of other choices except order over the internet.
Of course, I am tempted to say "15 Terrabytes!?!? Who would ever fill that up?" Of course, we said that about 100 MB drives 20 years ago!
I made a typo, I should have actually said 1,500,000 MB... because that's what the labelled 1.5 Terabyte drives actually are. Oops. I don't normally state it that way, but that little marketing ploy has always irritated me. Probably irritates the HD manufacturers at this point too.
Ordering over the internet is the way to go. Newegg, FTW! :)
Yeah, storage needs always seem to go up, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Wouldn't surprise me if Google uses Exabytes!
The problem is not Moore's Law. Yes, we keep doubling the number of transistors in the same space (or same number of transistors for half the space). The big problem is power. Its refered to as the power wall. We just can't get enough power on to the chip to power all the transistors. Another consideration too is the memory wall. Once more also the speed at which CPU's frequencies have increased has not matched that of Memory interface speeds.
But frequency is not a very good judge of performance. As you say, more cores should mean more speed in terms of performance. Unfortunately that is not true...
I know what you're saying, and you're right, mostly.
For stuff that can't be parallelized, for the past few years, speed has been going up much slower for the reasons you mention. For stuff that can (quite a bit, graphics being the obvious example), more cores = more speed, and for that, performance has been increasing faster than moore's law.
The problems you mention (power, memory speeds), that's only a barrier if one stays with current designs of semiconductors and related technologies... but, that's an evolving field, and will change, likely bringing with it dramatic performance increases. Looking back 20 years from now at a chart of CPU performance over time, we'll probably see this line ramping up, then almost a plateau (which we're in right now) then an abrupt vertical jump continuing or superceding the previous line. IMO anyway :)
I still think you are being overly optimistic. Power is a much bigger issue than you make it out to be. Did you know that current cpu's have a higher power density compared to nuclear reactors?
Sure.. but CPUs are not nuclear reactors (another field which will soon significantly change).
Stuff sometimes seems not to change.. but it doesn't mean it's not changing (development etc then ramping up to production) behind the scenes for the most part.. but changing it is.
Time will tell who is right.. but Intel have their entire business at stake in moving forward. There's obvious areas to explore, and they're exploring it (and I'm sure what's public is only a part at what they're looking at). They'll succeed.
(well, they sort of did, but the only reason you don't see larabee processors is because they couldn't make the GPU side cost effective enough for the given performance.. be very sure though that the tech still exists and is being developed, and will appear at some point)
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no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 08:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 08:42 (UTC)I still have my first computer's 10MB hard drive - I use it as a bookend (I have another matching one). It's a Seagate ST412, if I remember correctly.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 08:46 (UTC)This PC literally was a PC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer#PC) too, not even an XT or an AT. It might be in my garage as well. There are way too many computers and monitors out there, not to mention the six computers in the bedroom.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 08:59 (UTC)My first was an IBM XT motherboard with a disk controller, 384KB expansion card, and CGA graphics card, all mounted in a home-built sheet-metal chassis. I later made a wooden case for it.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 09:08 (UTC)I'm afraid the ones in the garage are just taking up space. Three of them in the bedroom are functioning as furniture, more or less (two bedstands and one that's holding my regular desktop monitor at the right height), and two of them (desktop and laptop) are the ones I actually use. Some day I'd like to get all the hard drive contents consolidated onto storage media so I can recycle all the old machines.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 09:09 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 09:13 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 16:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 16:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 17:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 16:40 (UTC)Fond memories.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 09:58 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 12:16 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 13:10 (UTC)I wonder where it will top out? Terrabytes? Petabytes?
I notice we have pretty much topped out in processor speed ~3Ghz. For most of the 70's through the 90's we were following Moore's law. Well, actually, his law states that the number of transistors in a processor would double every 18 months. As a result, we were doubling speed as well. For my first 3 computer upgrades, I went up on processor speed by a factor of 10 each time.
My first hard drive was 10 MB. I see this one has 450 GB and at Best Buy they have Terrabyte drives for under $100.
I wonder how things will be different in another 40 years? Of course, I had better be around to make the comparison!
Take care
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 14:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 16:46 (UTC)I know what you mean about Moore's law and processor speed, but it's deceiving.. Moore's law has continued unabated, and what used to manifest as a speed up has now, temporarily, spread laterally in # of cores. GPUs follow this as well, but because more cores = more speed, GPU speeds have more than doubled every year. I do think that sometime in the next 10 years we'll see a dramatic jump in processor speeds to 20 GHz or even 100 GHz or more, as various technologies come into play.. and so looking at a line of proc speeds over time, you'll see, if anything, Moore's law accelerating. 'Course, we'll only know if I'm right when it happens!
Best buy has lousy prices.. you can get multiple 15000 MB hard drives for $100.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 17:39 (UTC)OK curious now. Your profile says you live in the US, and you spell things with Z's instead of S's (e.g. realizing vs. realising), but you user the term 15000 MB instead of Terra byte.
Yes, Best Buy has bad prices, but sigh, in small town Iowa, not a lot of other choices except order over the internet.
Of course, I am tempted to say "15 Terrabytes!?!? Who would ever fill that up?" Of course, we said that about 100 MB drives 20 years ago!
Take care.
Bodine
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 17:51 (UTC)Ordering over the internet is the way to go. Newegg, FTW! :)
Yeah, storage needs always seem to go up, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Wouldn't surprise me if Google uses Exabytes!
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 22:40 (UTC)Avatar took up a petabyte of server storage space.
Google processes 24 petabytes of information per day.
On a single day, June 15, 2009, it is estimated 494 exabytes were transferred around the world.
Next comes zettabytes. By the end of 2010 the world will be producing 1 zettabyte of info a year.
Yes, yes, I want a 15 zettabyte drive for my computer!
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 22:50 (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 13:02 (UTC)But frequency is not a very good judge of performance. As you say, more cores should mean more speed in terms of performance. Unfortunately that is not true...
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 15:19 (UTC)For stuff that can't be parallelized, for the past few years, speed has been going up much slower for the reasons you mention. For stuff that can (quite a bit, graphics being the obvious example), more cores = more speed, and for that, performance has been increasing faster than moore's law.
The problems you mention (power, memory speeds), that's only a barrier if one stays with current designs of semiconductors and related technologies... but, that's an evolving field, and will change, likely bringing with it dramatic performance increases. Looking back 20 years from now at a chart of CPU performance over time, we'll probably see this line ramping up, then almost a plateau (which we're in right now) then an abrupt vertical jump continuing or superceding the previous line. IMO anyway :)
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 15:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 15:25 (UTC)Stuff sometimes seems not to change.. but it doesn't mean it's not changing (development etc then ramping up to production) behind the scenes for the most part.. but changing it is.
Time will tell who is right.. but Intel have their entire business at stake in moving forward. There's obvious areas to explore, and they're exploring it (and I'm sure what's public is only a part at what they're looking at). They'll succeed.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 24 March 2010 07:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, 24 March 2010 13:11 (UTC)(well, they sort of did, but the only reason you don't see larabee processors is because they couldn't make the GPU side cost effective enough for the given performance.. be very sure though that the tech still exists and is being developed, and will appear at some point)
no subject
Date: Sunday, 21 March 2010 17:34 (UTC)And I can't wait to see what else changes either!
edg
no subject
Date: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 08:23 (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 15:19 (UTC)