Reading Notes (2)

Computer Hardware: Wikipedia

The outline provided by wikipedia is quite helpful, in that it links to more in-depth and technical articles about each of the components it mentions, as well as mentioning some more examples than were discussed in class last week, and it also includes some obsolete examples, which is simply fluff that could be interesting if you wanted to know about the history of hardware, or its evolution. It included a lot of examples of buses.

Moore's Law: Wikipedia

Moore's law states that the number of transistors that can be placed on a circuit will double every two years, which he later amended to approximately 18 months. The corollary to that is, with a doubling in transistors, a similar increase will also be seen in the aspects of circuits that are affected by the number of transistors, which includes, according to the article, processing speed, memory capacity, sensors, and the number of pixels in digital cameras. Moore, a co-founder of Intel, made this prediction back in 1965, and his hypothesis has been proven true. The article, quite rightly, points out that one of the reasons his prediction came true was that the industries involved saw Moore's Law as a goal, something that they had to achieve. Thus, Moore's Law, monumental advancement of computing powers, became true, at least partially, because Moore's Law predicted the great advancement rate. This, I think, is a very interesting point. What would have happened had Moore and other industry experts not published reports about such predictions? An impossible question.

One other thing I noticed was the articles section on the future. While many predict an end to the exponential rate of increase in performance, some people think that it can be maintained for 600 years, or that we will eventually reach a period where progress in technology occurs almost instantly. I think I would have a hard time wrapping my head around that one.

Computer History Museum

This site was full of interesting information. I especially liked the visual representation of Moore's Law, the progress of transistor numbers, from one to the five hundred million of today. The museum offers a plethora of information for those interested in the history of computer hardware, companies and the leaders of the industry.