3 ms·
The comparison to 1991 gadgets is in terms of thing-doing, not MIPS and storage and whatnot. The comparison of raw compute power is interesting, but it doesn't
by byoung2 13y ago
The comparison to 1991 gadgets is in terms of thing-doing, not MIPS and storage and whatnot. The comparison of raw compute power is interesting, but it doesn't invalidate the other kind of comparison.
That was my reaction as well. In 1800 you only needed 1 or two horses to pull a cart to get you from point A to point B. A typical car today might have 200 horsepower, but you don't actually compare that to having 200 actual horses in 1800.
- Retric 13y agoIt works both ways though, a 200hp car can get you across the county a lot faster than 200 horses. Just as an iPhone can do a single threaded task faster than 3 billion dollars in 1991 hardware.
- alex_c 13y agoBut a 200hp car won't get you there 200 times faster than a horse. It'll get you there anywhere from 2 to 20+ times faster depending on the distance and the speed (city vs highway), but the comparison is pretty meaningless. (in other news, Google seems to have definitions for various animals' speeds. Neat!)