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"My mobile phone today is significantly faster and more powerful — and has a higher resolution display and more storage! — than my PC in 2000. " That can't be

"My mobile phone today is significantly faster and more powerful — and has a higher resolution display and more storage! — than my PC in 2000. " That can't be right...

jerf 16y ago
The iPhone 4 display is 960x640. In 2000, I was living large at 1024x768 or maybe 1154x864, but at the time I was a web designer and knew that I could only really count on 640x480, though 800x600 was possibly more common by then. My rather nice Sony Trinitron 15" monitor could display 1280x1024 but it looked like it was straining and I was afraid to run it that way for very long, and my 2D graphics performance took a noticable hit. But that was my desktop display. Given Charlie's history I would have a hard time thinking he didn't have 1024x768+ on a desktop but laptops were still often at 800x600, if memory serves. It's at least a close thing. I can say the 3D performance on the iPhone at that resolution blows away what I could get in 2000, for what it is worth, though I can't guarantee it would blow away a state-of-the-art card. I've always been behind on that front.
- roadnottaken 16y ago
  Yeah, after my post I googled around a bit and found that, like you said, it's pretty-close to true. Hard-drives in 2000 were ~10GB (iPhone4 is 16 or 32GB). The screen-resolution part seemed the hardest to believe, but you're right: I remember designing web-pages with 800x600 in mind. This is really just staggering.
patrickgzill 16y ago
It isn't... though of course a desktop won't fit in your hands (unless you have extremely, extremely large hands)... The Maxtor 80GB drive was introduced in mid-2000 : http://www.pcworld.com/article/1766/maxtor_rolls_out_80gb_hard_drive.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/1766/maxtor_rolls_out_80gb_ha... The best CPU in mid-2000 (x86 architecture) you could get was a PIII at about 1Ghz ... or else the Athlon at a similar clock speed, with higher memory bandwidth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors 19" CRT monitors were widely available for under $500, with resolutions of at least 1280x1024 and some going to 1600x1200 ... http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WUB/is_1999_May_17/ai_54665206/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WUB/is_1999_May_17/a... ATI had already introduced 128bit GPUs (limited by today's standards of course) with 32MB to 64MB DDR RAM, capable of 32-bit color at 1600x1200: http://www.itnetcentral.com/tech/atis-latest-graphics-engine-ati-radeon-309.html http://www.itnetcentral.com/tech/atis-latest-graphics-engine...
- ghshephard 16y ago
  I don't think Charlie was making a claim about what the highest end computer looked like, but instead, what _his_ computer was.
michaelbuckbee 16y ago
It's a little more plausible if the point of comparison is a 2000 era Mac: http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1114049 http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=111404...

"My mobile phone today is significantly faster and more powerful — and has a higher resolution display and more storage! — than my PC in 2000. " That can't be right...

jerf 16y ago

The iPhone 4 display is 960x640. In 2000, I was living large at 1024x768 or maybe 1154x864, but at the time I was a web designer and knew that I could only really count on 640x480, though 800x600 was possibly more common by then. My rather nice Sony Trinitron 15" monitor could display 1280x1024 but it looked like it was straining and I was afraid to run it that way for very long, and my 2D graphics performance took a noticable hit. But that was my desktop display. Given Charlie's history I would have a hard time thinking he didn't have 1024x768+ on a desktop but laptops were still often at 800x600, if memory serves. It's at least a close thing. I can say the 3D performance on the iPhone at that resolution blows away what I could get in 2000, for what it is worth, though I can't guarantee it would blow away a state-of-the-art card. I've always been behind on that front.

roadnottaken 16y ago
Yeah, after my post I googled around a bit and found that, like you said, it's pretty-close to true. Hard-drives in 2000 were ~10GB (iPhone4 is 16 or 32GB). The screen-resolution part seemed the hardest to believe, but you're right: I remember designing web-pages with 800x600 in mind. This is really just staggering.

patrickgzill 16y ago

It isn't... though of course a desktop won't fit in your hands (unless you have extremely, extremely large hands)... The Maxtor 80GB drive was introduced in mid-2000 : http://www.pcworld.com/article/1766/maxtor_rolls_out_80gb_hard_drive.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/1766/maxtor_rolls_out_80gb_ha... The best CPU in mid-2000 (x86 architecture) you could get was a PIII at about 1Ghz ... or else the Athlon at a similar clock speed, with higher memory bandwidth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors 19" CRT monitors were widely available for under $500, with resolutions of at least 1280x1024 and some going to 1600x1200 ... http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WUB/is_1999_May_17/ai_54665206/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WUB/is_1999_May_17/a... ATI had already introduced 128bit GPUs (limited by today's standards of course) with 32MB to 64MB DDR RAM, capable of 32-bit color at 1600x1200: http://www.itnetcentral.com/tech/atis-latest-graphics-engine-ati-radeon-309.html http://www.itnetcentral.com/tech/atis-latest-graphics-engine...

ghshephard 16y ago
I don't think Charlie was making a claim about what the highest end computer looked like, but instead, what _his_ computer was.

michaelbuckbee 16y ago

It's a little more plausible if the point of comparison is a 2000 era Mac: http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1114049 http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=111404...