Comparing Yesterday's Computers to Today's

Hi!

A while back, I came across a very interesting fact about yesterday's computers. One of the first computers used to keep track of and run the complete payroll, monthly billing, and customer records for a fairly decent-sized small business was an IBM System/3 model 10. At this time (1969), this machine rented for approx. $1000/month. In today's world of gigabytes and terabytes, the amazing thing about this computer was that it ran with 8k of memory. It is common to compare an old computer to a modern digital watch. In fact, the System/3 is even more comparable to a musical greeting card that can cost one dollar these days at a neighbourhood dollar store. The question I ask is... if a computerized greeting card can run a small business then why does a modern business computer still cost thousands of dollars?

Why is this the case? One reason nay be because the computer companies can get away with it. Another reason may be that software gets slower, faster than hardware gets faster.

I welcome any other thoughts and/or opinions.

What may the future hold? I have a couple ideas. One... according to Moore's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law), computer power doubles every 18 months, meaning that computers will be a million times more powerful by the year 2030. Imagine having a computer that has a 5PHz CPU speed, has a petabyte (a thousand terabytes) of memory, and half an exabyte (a billion gigabytes) of hard disk-equivalent storage. Wow. It would be safe to say that I could burn a couple of music CD's fairly quickly.

Another aspect of computer functionality which I believe will improve tremendously is the computer's ability to defend our online interests more vigorously rather than just sit and wait for commands. Also, what if your computer can chronicle everything and anything that you have seen or done online? I mean, keep a complete record of every hour, minute and second that you have spent online throughout your whole entire life. What would make the computer even more amazing would be that it can do all this monitoring only using up less than 5 percent of your hard drive!