James Gosling on Moore's law

Java inventor James Gosling is using before/after photographs of himself to illustrate Moore's Law, comparing the PDP-8/I mainframe he used for satellite programming in 1969 to a Java smart-card ID from the present:

I find it amazing that the hot machine [of 1969], capable of doing all sorts of interesting things with satellite telelemetry (including making high resolution photographs, which was a neat trick with only 8K!), has less horsepower than the cheap piece of disposable plastic [of today]. What will it mean when today's large hot machine fits into a volume smaller than a grain of rice?

Java · 2004/01/16 · 0 COMMENTS · Link