Re: Singularitarian demographics

From: Dani Eder (danielravennest@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Aug 07 2006 - 09:40:22 MDT


Perhaps greater exposure to the high speed of
development in computers has something to do with it.

In the early 1970's I helped build the world's slowest
computer (max speed of 2 Hz), as a teaching tool in
high school. It used electromechanical relays to
operate. Circa 1930 this would have been the fastest
available technology.

The 'real' computer we had in the computer lab was
an IBM 1620. I don't remember it's speed, but it
had 16K of ram in a console the size of a large
rolltop desk, and 10 MB hard drive the size of
a washing machine.

Since my current PC has 50,000x the memory and
12,000x the storage in something like 1/1,000th
the volume, it's reasonable to me to extrapolate
similar large jumps in the future.

I don't know if the average computer user has
as visceral a feel for the improvements that
have been happening. To them the change in
screen size from 13" to 19" over 10 years might
seem like a doubling of screen real estate, and
Windows takes as ong to boot up as it did 10
years ago, so it doesn't feel like a big change.

Daniel

> Joshua Fox wrote:
>
> > I note that the great majority of SL4 members have
> computer software
> > as their primary profession. Why is this?
> >

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