Technical questions

Theemile wrote:I have a quote somewhere from 1948 I believe, stating that the author could see the use of maybe 4 or 5 computers around the world, not more. Sometimes, a person's horizons appear much closer than they actually are.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:I have a quote somewhere from 1948 I believe, stating that the author could see the use of maybe 4 or 5 computers around the world, not more. Sometimes, a person's horizons appear much closer than they actually are.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."

There it is - I thought it was Watson, but didn't have time to research.

Theemile wrote:I have a picture from the 1954 Popular Mechanics showing a mockup of supposed "home computer" from the 2000s. The image bares more in common with a nuclear reactor's control room than an IBM PC - the computer being the size of a large living room, with the walls covered in banks of dials.

That's not a picture from the 1954 Popular Mechanics, it's a manipulated image of a submarine maneuvering console taken from the US Navy site. The manipulated image was posted on fark.com in 2004 and has been making the rounds on the internet since then. You can find the original here.

Joat42 wrote:

Theemile wrote:I have a picture from the 1954 Popular Mechanics showing a mockup of supposed "home computer" from the 2000s. The image bares more in common with a nuclear reactor's control room than an IBM PC - the computer being the size of a large living room, with the walls covered in banks of dials.

That's not a picture from the 1954 Popular Mechanics, it's a manipulated image of a submarine maneuvering console taken from the US Navy site. The manipulated image was posted on fark.com in 2004 and has been making the rounds on the internet since then. You can find the original here.

Well that explains the wheel better. All the sites I've seen that image in have attributed it to PM in 1954. Thanks for the correction.

However, the central point remains - it's difficult to anticipate changes in technology. No one can argue that the microprocessor completely changed the thought of what was possible in a transistor only world.

Theemile wrote:However, the central point remains - it's difficult to anticipate changes in technology. No one can argue that the microprocessor completely changed the thought of what was possible in a transistor only world.

Even more at the time of the Watson quote, an electronic computer would be vacuum tubes and primitive memory:

The earliest forms of computer main memory were mercury delay lines, which were tubes of mercury that stored data as ultrasonic waves, and cathode-ray tubes, which stored data as charges on the tubes' screens.

Magnetic core memory was not developed until the late 40's. Given that and the state of programming (which was machine language), it is hard to imagine even a general purpose computer.

From where we were in the 1940's we are well past the point which Arthur C Clark was talking about when he said that any more sufficiently developed technology would seem like Magic.

I think my wife's Apple Watch had more computing capacity (and memory and connectivity) that the original Apollo 11 Command Module. Heck , Dick Tracy would be envious of what this watch can do.

Brigade XO wrote:From where we were in the 1940's we are well past the point which Arthur C Clark was talking about when he said that any more sufficiently developed technology would seem like Magic.

I think my wife's Apple Watch had more computing capacity (and memory and connectivity) that the original Apollo 11 Command Module. Heck , Dick Tracy would be envious of what this watch can do.

From what I can find, the computers on the Apollo 11 could do roughly 40000 instructions per second with under 80K of memory/storage. My old Commodore 64 was more powerful overall...

It is amazing how far things have changed in our lifetimes.

Brigade XO wrote:From where we were in the 1940's we are well past the point which Arthur C Clark was talking about when he said that any more sufficiently developed technology would seem like Magic.

I think my wife's Apple Watch had more computing capacity (and memory and connectivity) that the original Apollo 11 Command Module. Heck , Dick Tracy would be envious of what this watch can do.

zyffyr wrote:From what I can find, the computers on the Apollo 11 could do roughly 40000 instructions per second with under 80K of memory/storage. My old Commodore 64 was more powerful overall...

It is amazing how far things have changed in our lifetimes.

One difference is that the Apollo computer had a 16 bit word (15 bits of data plus a parity bit) versus the Commodore being an 8 bit machine; so it makes the comparison harder than just instructions per second (since the Apollo is doing more work per instruction). You could be correct, but it is definite that a modern cell phone (or even smart watch) has much more power.

Brigade XO wrote:I think my wife's Apple Watch had more computing capacity (and memory and connectivity) that the original Apollo 11 Command Module. Heck , Dick Tracy would be envious of what this watch can do.

You'd be hard pressed to find anything with a microcontroller today that didn't seriously outclass the AGC in terms of processing speed or available memory (of all kinds).

Probably the only device you have that doesn't outclass the AGC is the only one you still have to change the time twice a year: your microwave. And even then, it would be a close call on ROM.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:I think my wife's Apple Watch had more computing capacity (and memory and connectivity) that the original Apollo 11 Command Module. Heck , Dick Tracy would be envious of what this watch can do.

You'd be hard pressed to find anything with a microcontroller today that didn't seriously outclass the AGC in terms of processing speed or available memory (of all kinds).

Probably the only device you have that doesn't outclass the AGC is the only one you still have to change the time twice a year: your microwave. And even then, it would be a close call on ROM.

Bought a basic scientific calculator last year at Dollar Tree for $1 (now $1.25) it outclasses the AGC by 10 fold or more. That amount of computing power is now a disposable commodity.