Here's
a cool chart at Popular Science that compares the computing power and prices for various types of devices since the 1930s. For example,
- your new smartphone is roughly as fast as a minicomputer or server of 1990, and costs $200 rather than hundred of thousands or millions of dollars.
- at a cost of $499, your iPad2 is faster than anything that existed prior to 1994.
- a Dell Latitude PC priced at about $2,000 today is faster than anything made prior to 2002, including a Compaq Wildfire server priced at $1.25 million.