[Closed] Aren't computers incredible these days?

So what's the largest file anyone's got on their system.
Mine is unsurprisingly GoPro footage edited in Sony Vegas - producing a HD WMV file of 1.6GB!

I can chat to people on the internet instead of working.

That's enough for me.

Oh, and I never knew that women could do that with those.

4Gb database file that holds data captured from 4.6 million invoices we have scanned.
Clients' credit controllers search the database via a website and download the scanned images from our servers

What's truly scary is how much of this capacity and power is wasted

You might think that.. but how many people want to watch a bluray on their laptop, or maybe edit that video they took on their fancy phone? As above, video used to be very intenstive, and HD video was a few years ago. Also ripping CDs used to take quite a while.

I bet a lot of the websites you see nowadays wouldn't work very well on a PC from 2000. I think you forget how much better the overall experience is now than it was then. Remember we don't demand all this power just to enable us to have semi-transparent windows on our desktops - the likes of Intel, AMD, Nvidia and ATI are making new stuff because they can and because numbers sell PCs and they need to compete. Microsoft and co just use it because it's there.

Also don't underestimate how much cheaper basic stuff is now. Back in the early 90s when a 50MHz cpu seemed pie in the sky, everyday desktop PCs were about a grand. Now you can get a pretty decent sub notebook with a very useable spec for a third of that in actual money terms, never mind real terms accounting for inflation.

So what's the largest file anyone's got on their system

So what's the largest file anyone's got on their system.

Pretty much any of the virtual machines I've got, for example a fairly clean Ubuntu 32 bit Virtual Box install I made last weekend is over 8GB.

Kind of puts the 16k memory expansion pack for my vic20 into perspective, I suppose. Out of interest, how much data can you fit on a C90 cassette?

I probably got twenty 48K games onto half a C90 (for backup purposes, obviously), so, what, 1Mb per side maybe? *handwavy*

I once worked out that at 2,400bps I could get almost 1MB onto a C120, back in the days of 48K computers. That was incredible!

buuuurrrrrr bip brrrrrrrrr chhchhchhchchchchchh

Well I'm currently sat on a train posting from a device the size of a fag packet whilst running a cad program on another one the size of a notebook. Both connected wirelessly to the Internet. I have no idea how any of it works, but it just does and that's verging on miraculous.

People take it for granted, but if you did know how it worked you'd be even more amazed.

I just marvel at the amount of work that has gone into making and designing all of it, over the years.

Also don't underestimate how much cheaper basic stuff is now. Back in the early 90s when a 50MHz cpu seemed pie in the sky, everyday desktop PCs were about a grand. Now you can get a pretty decent sub notebook with a very useable spec for a third of that

Or a Raspberry Pi: 700Mhz CPU, 256Mb RAM, 2 USB ports, Ethernet, SD card reader, HDMI output, GFX chip capable of 1080p Bluray-quality playback.

$35

Speaking of the Spectrum,

You're marvelling over what can be done with modern hardware. With sufficient practice and talent, it's pretty marvellous what can be done with old hardware. Check this out.

http://zxspectrum48.i-demo.pl/zxgallery.html

For those interested in NASA software development...

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html

There was another article (which I can't find), about how they keep reviewing their code, hundreds of times over, to squeeze extra performance out of it.

A vast proportion of their code is written in Assembly, as C took up too much room...

A vast proportion of their code is written in Assembly, as C took up too much room...

Been there. Done that. Not much fun!

[img] [/img]

*applauds*

Watching Cad Cam develop over the last few years has been truly amazing .
Some design and production methods are stunning.

For MrsToast: http://www.google.com/moon/ 😉

This all reminds me of that famous misquote attributed to the top man at IBM in the 40's about how he could see a world market for at most 5 computers. I doubt he really anticipated this...

99% of us just use it for 'Liking' things on FaceBook and watching people fall over on YouTube. Oh, and posting opinions that nobody cares about on forums.

It's also slightly depressing to think that we now have instant access to so much knowledge and learning, but most of my internet time is spent reading posts on here 😐

So, anyone here operate an HPC?

AlexSimon - Member

I remember spending £250 on a 2x write speed CD Burner.
hmmmmm

I remember spending a similar amount on a double-speed CD [i]Reader[/i]!

Or a Raspberry Pi: 700Mhz CPU, 256Mb RAM, 2 USB ports, Ethernet, SD card reader, HDMI output, GFX chip capable of 1080p Bluray-quality playback.

$35

If they ever let you order the bloody things, the Farnell site was /.ed and I think it was RS I 'regsitered an interest' with along with around a million other people who live with their mums.

I bet a lot of the websites you see nowadays wouldn't work very well on a PC from 2000

That Pi thing looks interesting.

I remember spending £250 on a 2x write speed CD Burner.

So, anyone here operate an HPC?

home PCs ... are obscenely overspecced (and priced) for what they actually do

You could say the same about bikes, cars, washing machines, toasters, biro's ... coffee machines, razors, chainsaws ... 😉

You could say the same about bikes

Edit bike wise I'd like to see rigid v-braked bikes available for very little money, same as I'd like there to be cheap PCs running an optimised lightweight OS that can handle web browsing and plug into any TV/monitor. But no you get cutting edge technology for mr money bags and the low end market trying to badly emulate it. Be that shit heavy full sus bike with wooden disc brakes or a cheap PC crippled under windows 7. Cheap can be done well if you accept the limitations and do it differently.

So, anyone here operate an HPC?

Nope but I do have some 16 node vSphere clusters with 24 cores in each. The HPC stuff is not on the general network, I think there are legions of people with top pockets full of pens doing that somewhere. Probably in a hollowed out volcano, with big tanks of sharks with frickin laser beam eyes.

it is scary, sad i know but i downloaded MAME onto my laptop the other night and downloaded loads of retro games, was laughing at the size of them.

i use lots of iomega 1Tb back up drives in work for the backups.

god knows what it will be like in 20 years time.

Back in the late 1980's a mate used to work for a Data Storage company which backed up bank records, confidential company data etc back in the days when memory was too expensive for anyone but the biggest corporations. They had a warehouse full of computing power which could store about 100Gb of data. That was a simply obscene amount and any geek who heard him talking about it would be amazed.

My back-up hard-drive is 500Gb and was about £79.

640K ought to be enough for anybody

If they ever let you order the bloody things, the Farnell site was /.ed and I think it was RS I 'regsitered an interest' with along with around a million other people who live with their mums.

They'll come. Eventually. It's just a combination of them vastly underestimating demand, and not having enough money to commit to a bigger initial production run.

I suspect a lot of people will be a bit disappointed when they come though - I can't believe there are that many true geeks or people involved in educational IT (I'm both, and very excited) who understand the limitations and will appreciate them for what they are. I'm guessing that people are expecting something they're not quite going to get.

The Apollo computers also had hand-made memory made by old ladies. A change to the software used to take weeks to re-program.

Wonder how many people reading this thread know what /.ed is....

Wonder how many people reading this thread know what /.ed is....

IME the biggest jump in performance/useability is the advancement in multicore processors. multitasking on single core processors of the past was a complete PITA. I can kick of a huge background render and forget it's running as it has no impact on the overall performance of the PC.

So, anyone here operate an HPC?

Didn't operate, but back in the early naughties I helped build a couple of 500 node HPCs from scratch - rack/stack/cable all the servers, install linux on each etc. One of them all the disks had to be unpacked from individual boxes (2 per node) - we ended up with 5 skips of packing material.

The first computer I used for graphics was a 466/66 PC. I can't remember now how much RAM it had, probably about 8Kb, with possibly an 80Mb HDD. I used to draw up logos in CorelDraw from little scans, and when I did a screen refresh I could stroll out, get a coffee, stroll back, sit down and quietly watch the screen veerrryyy ssssslllllooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy refresh itself. When I bought my first digital camera, a Nikon CoolPix 5200, and I decided to buy a 1Gb CF card for it. It's a 5Mp camera, and cost around £800 in 2003, and the CF card was £200... 😯
I'm just looking at a replacement for my 2007 Lumix TZ3, a TZ30. A 32Gb SDHC card is £17.89 from 7dayshop... 😯

The Apollo computers also had hand-made memory made by old ladies. A change to the software used to take weeks to re-program.

It still does. It's not the compiler, that takes a second. It's the days of testing, deployments, contract and QC administration that takes the time.

Computers are incredible, but humans are a daft as ever.

they are incredible and how people have utilised the technology in such a short space of time is equally as incredible

quantum computing is coming and it's scary just what will happen if the technology becomes available
[url= http://greenbananablog.org/2010/01/the-mind-blowing-possibilities-of-quantum-computing-explained-edchat/ ]quantum computing explained[/url]

So what's the largest file anyone's got on their system.
Mine is unsurprisingly GoPro footage edited in Sony Vegas - producing a HD WMV file of 1.6GB!

My girlf films in broadcast standard HD, individual clips are around 10 - 15gb. A project is typically around 500gb - 1tb. Having working copies and backups is getting mental and the industry is going tapeless so [i]all[/i] your rushes now are digital files not just what you are editing.

We buy hard drives now the way we used to by packs of CDRs a few years ago