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Cost of computer memory 1955-2018

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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 13:29 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Cost of computer memory 1955-2018 Reply with quote
Just seen a couple of interesting web pages showing how memory prices have dropped over the decades.

https://www.jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm
https://www.jcmit.net/diskprice.htm

RAM - $400,000/MByte, down to $0.0068 today.

Disk - $9200/MByte, down to $0.0000234 today.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 13:45 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
And we were moaning about the recent price rises Smile I remember a friend paying £128 for 128mb even in the early 2000's and that being a really good deal. Similarly people paying £100 for 40GB hard drives iirc.

Unless I'm misremembering prices for components and electronics in general were high until we started getting flooded with Chinese (produced) goods. Internet shopping probably also helped prices.
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Im-a-Ridah
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PostPosted: 14:04 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
DDR4 and later is very expensive, about double what it should be due to a shortage. Also Intel processors are more expensive due to a shortage of small process capacity although at the same time AMD Ryzen processors are extremely good value.

The difference from the past is that for just web stuff you don't need new tech. Any desktop that uses DDR3 is already plenty fast enough for most purposes.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 14:12 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Im-a-Ridah wrote:
DDR4 and later is very expensive, about double what it should be due to a shortage. Also Intel processors are more expensive due to a shortage of small process capacity although at the same time AMD Ryzen processors are extremely good value.

The difference from the past is that for just web stuff you don't need new tech. Any desktop that uses DDR3 is already plenty fast enough for most purposes.

I've not kept an eye on RAM prices but I thought they were coming down, SSDs have definitely fallen, and I'm pretty sure are the lowest they've ever been. Intel just sell off their brand image TBH, I get why but AMD have always undercut them, it's just with Ryzen that have a decent chip now.

My laptop is 10 years old and still does browsing/video etc. fine, no way could you have done that with tech' from the preceding decade. The only thing is now there are so many underpowered devices shipped with Windows 10, I doubt you'll be able to do that in future.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 14:56 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
I remember when my dad bought a new computer with a 2GB hard drive.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a hard drive measured in GB.

Was around the year 2000.
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doggone
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PostPosted: 15:08 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Lord Percy wrote:
I remember when my dad bought a new computer with a 2GB hard drive.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a hard drive measured in GB.

Was around the year 2000.

That must have been a sh1t one though, my first was about 2001 and it had 20GB drive.
I recorded a 26GB video yesterday Rolling Eyes
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P.
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PostPosted: 15:19 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Im-a-Ridah wrote:
DDR4 and later is very expensive, about double what it should be due to a shortage. Also Intel processors are more expensive due to a shortage of small process capacity although at the same time AMD Ryzen processors are extremely good value.

The difference from the past is that for just web stuff you don't need new tech. Any desktop that uses DDR3 is already plenty fast enough for most purposes.


I was amazed at the cost of DDR4. I'm running 16GB of it and would like another 16GB... fuck that.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 16:39 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Lord Percy wrote:
I remember when my dad bought a new computer with a 2GB hard drive.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a hard drive measured in GB.

Was around the year 2000.

I remember being similarly star struck when I briefly had a 2GB hard drive before it failed, second hand hard drives FTW Rolling Eyes I genuinely had a 500mb and then (I think) 800mb drive for ages. Being a hoarder I probably still have them somewhere Embarassed

Now a 120GB SSD feels like you're really pushing it.
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andym
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PostPosted: 19:56 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
My first PC was a 486 DX2 66 with 40mb RAM and 128mb HDD, a couple of PC's later I was chuffed to get a whole 10gb hard drive for only £100.

Skip forward a few years and I got an XDA mini s when they were first released* and was amazed that you could get a whole 512mb on a card so small

Now I'm not sure what size micro sd card you can get, I've seen pictures of both 512gb and 1tb, neither one seem real to me though.




* a couple of months ago I was digging through some of my junk and found my dead XDA, a quick jump start of the battery and it started charging.... and it still works:
https://i.imgur.com/bqBNvbH.jpg
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Im-a-Ridah
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PostPosted: 21:08 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
My first PC was an Intel 8th gen 8700K, but it's nothing compared to modern computers. Ahh them were the days.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 21:45 - 08 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
andym wrote:
40mb RAM

Privileged Folded arms I had 16MB then upgraded to 24, which was a useless annoying amount back in the days when stuff would run with 32MB but not 24 Brick Wall
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stinkwheel
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PostPosted: 00:06 - 09 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
My first PC was an Amstrad DD 1640. It didn't have a hard drive. It ran DOS and/or GEM off twin 5 1/2" flopy drives.

I was still using it in 1998 to word process Uni course work on wordperfect 1.0. By that time there were only two file types that were cross compatible with word for windows (.rtf and .txt) and I'd had to retrofit a 3 1/4" floppy drive.

The 1640 referrs to the amount of RAM in kilobytes... Which was 50x the RAM of my previous computer.
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F0ulOli
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PostPosted: 00:19 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Back in 1994, when I ran a computer shop, the first sale I made was a 4mb stick of memory for £200!

A few weeks ago, I bought a 32gb micro SD card for £6.

I'm sure in 20 years time, it will be possible to buy access to a 100Tb of solid memory for a few quid - I guess its all about context!
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UnknownStuntm...
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PostPosted: 09:33 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Found this page which is really, really interesting...
https://blog.thetubestore.com/not-your-grandfathers-smartphone/

Quote:
The transistors in an iPhoneX would, back in the late 1950s, implemented in vacuum tubes, have:

cost 150 trillion of today’s dollars, which is:
one and a half times today’s global annual product,
more than seven times today’s U.S. annual national product
forty times 1957’s U.S. national product
fourteen times 1957’s global annual product
taken up 100 billion square meters of floor space
that is (with a three-meter ceiling height per floor): a hundred-story square building 300 meters high, and 3 kilometers long and wide
drawn 150 terawatts of power—30 times the world’s current generating capacity
the world produces 50,000 twh/year—that is: 5 twh/hour = 5 tw of capacity
(cf.: the 50,000 vacuum tubes of the “AN/FSQ-7 computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FSQ-7_Combat_Direction_Central… occupied 0.5 acres (2,000 m2) of floor space, weighed 275 tons, and used up to three megawatts of power…” https://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=964)

Oh. And clock speed. The AN/FSQ-7 operated at 75khz. The A-11 is a 6-core 24 mhz processor:

2000 100 billion square meter buildings, each a hundred-stories—300 meters high—and 3 kilometers long and wide
3000 times today’s global annual product
300 petawatts of power—60,000 time sthe world’s currnet generating capacity
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Im-a-Ridah
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PostPosted: 13:11 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
UnknownStuntman wrote:
Found this page which is really, really interesting...
https://blog.thetubestore.com/not-your-grandfathers-smartphone/

Quote:
The transistors in an iPhoneX would, back in the late 1950s, implemented in vacuum tubes, have:

cost 150 trillion of today’s dollars, which is:
one and a half times today’s global annual product,
more than seven times today’s U.S. annual national product
forty times 1957’s U.S. national product
fourteen times 1957’s global annual product
taken up 100 billion square meters of floor space
that is (with a three-meter ceiling height per floor): a hundred-story square building 300 meters high, and 3 kilometers long and wide
drawn 150 terawatts of power—30 times the world’s current generating capacity
the world produces 50,000 twh/year—that is: 5 twh/hour = 5 tw of capacity
(cf.: the 50,000 vacuum tubes of the “AN/FSQ-7 computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FSQ-7_Combat_Direction_Central… occupied 0.5 acres (2,000 m2) of floor space, weighed 275 tons, and used up to three megawatts of power…” https://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=964)

Oh. And clock speed. The AN/FSQ-7 operated at 75khz. The A-11 is a 6-core 24 mhz processor:

2000 100 billion square meter buildings, each a hundred-stories—300 meters high—and 3 kilometers long and wide
3000 times today’s global annual product
300 petawatts of power—60,000 time sthe world’s currnet generating capacity


2.4Ghz
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Pjay
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PostPosted: 13:20 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
I dread to think what I have spent on memory in my lifetime.
It all started with a 512mb expansion for my Amiga 500 and recently I have purchased 128GB of DDR3, with pretty much everything in-between.
I usually look to upgrade any system I have to populate the motherboard with its maximum supported ram, so I've obviously spent a good amount of money since that 1992 purchase. 72 pin simms were so freaking expensive, I would save for weeks for a 4mb stick.

I once spend £1k on an SSD too.

I'm a dick.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 15:05 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Pjay wrote:
It all started with a 512mb expansion for my Amiga 500

I think I blew mine recently* Crying or Very sad It was a 1MB board I didn't even know it had, after taking the Amiga apart to remove the leaking battery (Plus model) I put the board in the wrong way round Brick Wall

*that or it just decided to stop working
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Pjay
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PostPosted: 15:48 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
M.C wrote:
*that or it just decided to stop working

The good news is that they are pretty easy to repair, if you are half decent at board repair.
There are plenty of resources out there for replacement parts.
It's certainly worth looking into, Amiga stuff is becoming quite expensive.
My last Amiga was an 030 Accelerated A1200 with CDRom and 2.5" HDD.
That setup easily fetches £500 these days. I think I got about £150 for mine in 1997. I do miss my Amiga, I loved making music on Octamed.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 16:09 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
It's probably a bit beyond my skill level but I'll take a look Thumbs Up The Amiga still works I just get an error message with the expansion board attached, so if I did blow something I think it was just the board.

My Amiga sat in a cupboard for years, after checking it still worked and losing a couple of days playing old games, I stuck it on eBay and got £100. The guy who bought it said it wouldn't turn on, so I refunded him and paid to get it sent back, turned out it was the PSU... I think the Amiga just wanted to come home Smile

Anyhoo he didn't package it properly so the case/keys sustained some damage, and I'm not really sure what to do with it now. Last time I got it out...

https://i69.servimg.com/u/f69/15/13/82/47/img-2010.jpg

Very Happy
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Pjay
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PostPosted: 16:17 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
M.C wrote:
I'm not really sure what to do with it now.

I'd fix it up and make it look new.
Send it to me, you can admire the results and you'll know it went to a nice home Very Happy

I don't want it.

I do.

I really could do with less shit in my life, but I do miss the clicking of an amiga drive.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 16:25 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Pjay wrote:
I do miss the clicking of an amiga drive.

Smile I downloaded an Amiga emulator and it had all the disc drive sounds/realistic loading times, then Worms DC wouldn't run initially cos I hadn't selected the correct amount of fast ram or something (a bit too realistic that). I thought about getting a new case: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-compatible-case-for-amiga-500-plus#/ I think the same guy's also gonna do another run of key caps, but it's a lot of money for an old computer even if I do have an emotional attachment to it.

Also I'm not 100% confident in the Amiga, it needs a soft reboot when you first turn it on, I vaguely remember it started doing this around the time it was retired (~2000 when I got a PC).
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panrider_uk
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PostPosted: 16:44 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
Back in the day (1983/84) we had HP Vectra PCs with 1Mb RAM (640Kb useable) and 20Mb hard drives.

From memory (pun intended) they cost us about £2k each.

Lotus 1-2-3 was the killer spreadsheet back then and we had to pay over £500 for a 1Mb RAM board (full size board with socketed chips) to be able to run it.
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MarJay
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PostPosted: 17:08 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
M.C wrote:

https://i69.servimg.com/u/f69/15/13/82/47/img-2010.jpg

Very Happy

You can buy reproduction cases in crazy colours now. The amiga scene is absolutely MASSIVE.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 17:33 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
MarJay wrote:
The amiga scene is absolutely MASSIVE.

Oh yeah, I lose hours watching videos. I was watching one with a guy who had one of those Vampire accelerators (100 mhz?), he loaded a jpg to show how good it was, and it was still...

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/EverlastingIncompatibleDromedary.webp

Smile
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Pjay
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PostPosted: 18:14 - 17 Jan 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFespp1adI0

I really want one of these.
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Old Thread Alert!

The last post was made 5 years, 94 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful?
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