The Smartphones

One of my first jobs was working in the "computer room" with an NCR 390 computer:


It took an entire, air conditioned room to house it, and a lot of human intervention to keep it running, splicing tapes, hand-inserting ledger cards for printing, even as we marveled at our computer's awesome abilities.

Flash forward to our current life, with smartphones, and thereby supercomputers, a common possession in purses and pockets.  The following infographic is fascinating....at least to me!
http://www.charliewhite.net/2013/09/smartphones-vs-supercomputers/

Smartphones leave yesterday’s supercomputers in the dust [INFOGRAPHIC]

Do you have any idea how powerful that smartphone in your pocket is? This infographic will astonish you, showing you how a typical smartphone circa 2013 is many times faster than the most formidable supercomputer of 1985.

That’s just the beginning of this beautifully researched and thorough infographic, which will take you from the ancient past of computing well into the future. 

Not only will you marvel at smartphones that give you superpowers in your pocket, but you’ll see how the cost of computing has plummeted. For instance, a humble Tom Tom GPS unit is 244 times faster than NASA’s Apollo guidance computer that landed the lunar module on the moon, and a $2 million video editing suite from 1990 was nowhere near as powerful as the free Instagram video app is today.

Jeez, we’ve come a long way, and we have a long way to go. If you’re like me, you’ll get lost in this fascinating infographic. Many thanks to William Freedman and Fonebank for giving me permission to use it.

(Click graphic for enlargement)

Infographic courtesy Fonebank, William Freedman