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Modern Hardware - Algorithmica

en.algorithmica.org · 1,295 words · saved by 1 readers

The main disadvantage of the supercomputers of the 1960s wasn’t that they were slow — relatively speaking, they weren’t — but that they were giant, complex to use, and so expensive that only the governments of the world superpowers could afford them. Their size was the reason they were so expensive: they required a lot of custom components that had to be very carefully assembled in the macro-world, by people holding advanced degrees in electrical engineering, in a process that couldn’t be scaled up for mass production. The turning point was the development of microchips — single, tiny, complete circuits — which revolutionized the industry and turned out to be probably the most important invention of the 20th century. What was a multimillion-dollar cupboard of computing machinery in 1965 could in 1975 fit on a 4mm × 4mm slice of silicon1 that you can buy for $25. This dramatic improvement in affordability started the home computer revolution during the following decade, with computers l

The main disadvantage of the supercomputers of the 1960s wasn't that they were slow — relatively speaking, they weren't — but that they were giant, complex to use, and so expensive that only the governments of the world superpowers could afford them. Their size was the reason they were so expensive: they required a lot of custom components that had to be very carefully assembled in the macro-world, by people holding advanced degrees in electrical engineering, in a process that couldn't be scaled up for mass production. The turning point was the development of microchips — single, tiny, complet

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