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Understand smartphone technology cost in the 1980s

⏱️ 10-15 minutes 📊 Beginner 💻 Technology

About This Idea

Learn that the technology in a single smartphone would have cost over $100 million and filled a building in the 1980s. This quick computing history lesson reveals the incredible pace of technological progress and miniaturization.

#technology#history#computing#innovation#moores-law

📑 Table of Contents

How to Get Started

STEP 1
YOUR PHONE'S POWER (3 minutes)
  1. Modern smartphone has:
  2. - 4-8 GB RAM
  3. - 128-512 GB storage
  4. - Multi-core processor (billions of transistors)
  5. - GPS
  6. - High-res camera
  7. - Touchscreen
  8. - Wireless communication
  9. - Internet access
  10. - All in pocket-sized device
STEP 2
1980s EQUIVALENT (5 minutes)
  1. To replicate in 1980s would need:
  2. Computer:
  3. - Cray-2 supercomputer: $17-32 million
  4. - Filled room, weighed 5,500 lbs
  5. - Less powerful than modern phone
  6. Storage:
  7. - 1 GB (1980s): $100,000+
  8. - Phone's 128 GB: $12+ million just for storage
  9. GPS:
  10. - Military only, building-sized receivers
  11. - Consumer GPS didn't exist
  12. Camera:
  13. - Professional film camera: $10,000+
  14. - Digital cameras didn't exist
  15. Communication:
  16. - Car phone: $3,000-4,000 + $150/month
  17. Total: Easily $100+ million, multiple buildings
STEP 3
MOORE'S LAW (4 minutes)
  1. Gordon Moore (Intel co-founder):
  2. - Predicted transistor count doubles every 2 years
  3. - Cost stays same or decreases
  4. - Has held true since 1965
  5. Result:
  6. - Exponential growth in power
  7. - Exponential decrease in cost
  8. - Exponential decrease in size
  9. From 1980s to now:
  10. - ~20 doubling periods
  11. - 2^20 = 1,048,576x improvement
  12. - Million times more powerful
  13. - Million times cheaper
  14. - Thousand times smaller
STEP 4
PERSPECTIVE (3 minutes)
  1. Your phone:
  2. - More powerful than Apollo moon computers
  3. - Costs $500-1,500
  4. - Fits in pocket
  5. - Connected to billions of other devices
  6. What might 2060 look like?
  7. - Current supercomputer in your contact lens?
  8. - Brain-computer interfaces?
  9. - Quantum computing in watch?
  10. Rate of progress is breathtaking

What You'll Need

Recommended Resources

📚 Tutorials & Learning

  • History of Computing 🔗
    Computer History Museum
  • Moore's Law Explained 🔗
    Video explanation

👥 Communities

  • r/technology 🔗
    Technology discussion

Progress Milestones

Track your progress with these key achievements:

1
5 minutes
Understand your phone's power
2
10 minutes
Learn 1980s comparison
3
15 minutes
Grasp Moore's Law

Common Challenges & Solutions

Every beginner faces obstacles. Here's how to overcome them:

⚠️ Hard to believe progress is that fast
Solution: Look at photos from the 1980s—room-sized computers, car phones the size of bricks, no internet. In just 40 years, we went from that to supercomputers in our pockets. The exponential nature of progress makes it hard to comprehend.

Share Your Progress

Celebrate your achievements and inspire others:

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