Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!spdcc!esegue!johnl
From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Moore's Law
Message-ID: <1990Feb9.044850.1788@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Date: 9 Feb 90 04:48:50 GMT
References: <51751@bu.edu.bu.edu> <3300099@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA
Lines: 17

In article <3300099@m.cs.uiuc.edu> nelson@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>Something here seems a bit flaky...  If, in fact, that doubling every 10
>  months rule holds back to 1960, and we assume that there was only ONE
>  transistor then, we have 20 trans. for every person on Earth.  ...

There was one transistor in 1947.  By 1960 there were many transistorized
computers as well as all sorts of non-digital equipment like portable radios.
As noted elsewhere, RAM makers are churning out billions of transistors per
month these days, and as they move to 4MB and 16MB chips, the rate will only
increase.  I bought about 20 million transistors last year (8MB of parity
RAM and other random stuff, I bet there's another million in my CD player),
how about you?
-- 
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus|spdcc}!esegue!johnl
"Now, we are all jelly doughnuts."