The Cost of a Computer the Year You Were Born

[sdifox]

I thought Opterons came out before powerpc g5?

not to mention PSX2 and Nintendo 64.

 

[zinfamous]

I thought Opterons came out before powerpc g5?

not to mention PSX2 and Nintendo 64.

opterons are meant for server class computers. Either way, I was pretty sure that AMD's FX64 Athlons were the first 64bit CPUs for personal desktops, no?

 

[Markbnj]

The Compaq Portable II, though markedly lighter than its predecessors, is hardly portable by today’s standards. Despite the machine’s relatively small 9 inch monitor, it weighed 26 pounds and did not pack as neatly as modern laptops.

My dad built multilayer PCBs for Compaq, and they went out of business owing his company a lot of money. One of those luggables was his consolation prize. Basically it was a rectangular metal box with the keyboard clapped on as the lid on one end. Heavy as shit, with a tiny green monochrome monitor and a floppy. I did learn BASIC on it though.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

According to all-mighty Wikipedia, the Power Mac G5 released in late June, 2003, while the AMD FX Clawhammer CPU did not release until late September, 2003.

The AMD Sledgehammer Opteron released the same month as the Power Mac G5 (June, 2003), but of course given it was a Server CPU, the PowerMac G5 got the nod for the first personal desktop System leveraging 64 bit, even though, in my entirely personal opinion, I would have considered the Power Mac G5 a workstation more than a Personal Computer.

 

[mnewsham]

did not realize those were out yet by then

Yeah, it's a bit misleading considering the P4 released like 1 month from 2001 and it took awhile for the market to see large quantities.

 

[IBMJunkman]

1948

IBM builds the SSEC (Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator). The computer contains 12,000 tubes.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ssec.html

 

[waggy]

1973 cost $3500 adjusted for inflation $18772


I bet boomers or olds is the most expensive. they had to have little dinosaurs in them. they had to pay to keep them alive and feed.

 

[Sonikku]

Doesn't 64 it just let you use more ram?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Doesn't 64 it just let you use more ram?

Pretty much. With 32 bit you can only use 4GB of ram while 64 it's much higher. That and integers can go up to 2^64 instead of 2^32. (I think? I might have that wrong) So like when coding something that requires any kind of indexing it means more objects. Or anything that uses math can work with bigger numbers etc.

Actually a problem we will face soon is the unix time stamp will run out. It is currently based on a signed 32 bit int which is the number of seconds since Jan 1 1970. That number will reach the end soon as 32 bit can only go so far while 64 can go magnitudes further. They should really work on standardizing the unix time stamp to be a 64 bit int instead.

 

[pcslookout]

$2450

 

[sdifox]

opterons are meant for server class computers. Either way, I was pretty sure that AMD's FX64 Athlons were the first 64bit CPUs for personal desktops, no?

Thought the one series weren't but I guess my memory sucks.

 

[Mai72]

Wonder what computers will be like 100 years from now.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

 

[Imp]

Wonder what computers will be like 100 years from now.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

Hopefully the size of a mouse with wireless power and wireless video signal transfer -- we're essentially there on all but the latter already. Now that I'm older, having a 40 lb cage of steel tied down by a dozen PVC cables sucks.

 

[MtnMan]

Still have it, still works.

 

[WHAMPOM]

When I was born you could get a good hand-held computer for $1.95, it was called the "slide rule."

 

[WHAMPOM]

Wonder what computers will be like 100 years from now.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

Pebbles in a bag, cannot use fingers and hands, some are born with too many and some too few.

 

[BUTCH1]

What I find amazing was that the Commodore Vic-20 and Commodore 64 sold insane amounts of units, I had '64 and they sold over 20 million of them. The Amiga was also a great machine and it sold well too yet somehow Commodore found a way to go bankrupt.

 

[BUTCH1]

Still have it, still works.

The Saturn V was built using these along with the rest of everything else Apollo. Amazing if you think about it.

 

[Brian Stirling]

The Saturn V was built using these along with the rest of everything else Apollo. Amazing if you think about it.

Well, to be fair, they also used computers a lot. And, about 15-20 years earlier the guys at Los Alamos also used computers and needed them to study the dynamics of both the A-bomb and the H-bomb though is was more heavily used for the H-bomb. In addition to the scarcity of bomb grade U and Pu the timetable was also effected by the availability and speed of those early computers.

So, although a lot of work on Apollo was done with slide rules the major work was done with computers.

My dad was the most honest man I ever knew but in the early/mid 70's, when the TI SR 50 came out and a friend of my brothers, who was know to be pretty shady, had one for sale at a time when they were like gold my dad just had to have it. He would never have bought it if he knew is was hot but he didn't ask a lot of questions either. He was pretty popular at IBM for a few weeks...


Brian

 

[MtnMan]

The Saturn V was built using these along with the rest of everything else Apollo. Amazing if you think about it.

That back when people used to think.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Still have it, still works.

Will it run Kerbal Space Program?

 

[BoomerD]

Unfortunately, computers got too cheap. There seems to have been a sweet spot, maybe 12 years ago, where the people who had computers at home were those who, in general, were better educated. Now, every idiot can afford one, every idiot can get online, and now, cyberspace is filled with idiots.

This place is proof of that...

 

[brianmanahan]

This place is proof of that...

but mayne was a member here in 1999, so :whiste:

 

[BUTCH1]

Well, to be fair, they also used computers a lot. And, about 15-20 years earlier the guys at Los Alamos also used computers and needed them to study the dynamics of both the A-bomb and the H-bomb though is was more heavily used for the H-bomb. In addition to the scarcity of bomb grade U and Pu the timetable was also effected by the availability and speed of those early computers.

So, although a lot of work on Apollo was done with slide rules the major work was done with computers.

My dad was the most honest man I ever knew but in the early/mid 70's, when the TI SR 50 came out and a friend of my brothers, who was know to be pretty shady, had one for sale at a time when they were like gold my dad just had to have it. He would never have bought it if he knew is was hot but he didn't ask a lot of questions either. He was pretty popular at IBM for a few weeks...


Brian

Well if you watch this documentary about the building of the Saturn V the manager of the F1 engine program says "keep in mind back in those days we were designing engines with slide-rules", it's at the 13:00 mark,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o39UlJlMce8