21–30 of 173 posts
Trying to answer the following might be fun as well: How much is a 1000 USD from today in that era in terms of purchasing power? What could you have bought with the equivalent amount of money, and how many people could have afforded the iPhone equivalent then?
1000USD today would be around 100USD in the 50s.
Comparisons like that always assume the that price is constant with increased demand even when world GDP is spent on something. What would likely happen is first the price would go up and later down as the world manufacturing would shift to vacuum tubes production.
But that brings up the question, what tech could we be subsidizing today so we can get it faster?
The comparison is a bit unfair because the technology of 1957 was primarily analog. A few rolls of film can store the same HD videos as an iPhone for instance. Video phones existed in the 1960s and just didn't catch on. It's sort of an apples and oranges comparison. Obviously there are many things that couldn't be done with analog tech. But it's not as bad as you would expect with just naive comparisons based on the…
The comparison is a bit unfair because the technology of 1957 was primarily analog. A few rolls of film can store the same HD videos as an iPhone for instance. Video phones existed in the 1960s and just didn't catch on. It's sort of an apples and oranges comparison. Obviously there are many things that couldn't be done with analog tech. But it's not as bad as you would expect with just naive comparisons based on the…
I bet you're fun at parties.
Honestly, who cares. A ton of modern inventions would've cost way more money in 1956. I'm not gonna go to the store and say, wow this microwave would've cost millions in the 50s, that's a super reasonable price. Compare 2017 phone prices to other 2017 phones.
Our quality of life in the first world changes for the better somewhat, but we had 150 trillion dollar equivalent devices we carry around?
I also think one of the comments is interesting, that indoor plumbing is so cheap but provides such an insanely greater improvement to QoL.
On the other hand, it's interesting they choose to use the semiconductor industry as their example because progress is slowing in the semi industry due to the laws of physics with respect to standard CMOS and innovative rescues in either architectural form or through novel device physics are very unlikely due to industry's glacial pace and apparent allergies to innovation. A field that scorns young entrants is bound to die someday.
...and yet, even with all this computing power, simple tasks like loading a webpage full of text still take ridiculously long times. Maybe not with a '57 vacuum tube (transistors actually existed at the time already) computer, but then there's this: https://hubpages.com/technology/_86_Mac_Plus_Vs_07_AMD_DualC... The massive increase in computing power has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in complexity. Fo…