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My How Far We Have Come In 29 Years (Read 737 times)
Apr 22nd, 2003 at 3:35pm

Iroquois   Offline
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I found a 1974 copy of the Guinness Book of Records and was looking through it. It's amazing how technology has changed in three decades. Here are some of the more interesting tech records from the GBofR 1974 as compaired to the GBofR 2002.

Most Powerful Computer
1974: The CDC 7600. Performs 36 million operations per second. Two memery cores of  80Kb and 853Kb. Actually had 320GB of storage space. Costed $15 Million US
2002: The IBM RS/6000 ASCI White. Preforms 12 Trillion Calculations per second. It has 6 Terabytes of RAM and has 160 Terabytes of storage space, enough to hold the entire Library of Congress. Can do complex math problems in 1 second which would otherwise take 1 person 10 million years to do with a pencil and calculator.
(Note: As I understand it, a PC's processer can do 1 calculation/clock cycle, therefore an AMD Athlon XP 3000, the fastest on the market can do 3 billion calculations/second.

Ship: Largest
1974: RMS Queen Elizabeth, at 82,998 tons with a length of 1031ft and a width of 118ft.
2002: Voyager of the Seas, at 144,000 tons with a length of 1020ft and a width of 157.5ft.

Building: Tallest
1974: CN Tower in Toronto at 1815ft, 5in.
2002: CN Tower still reigns as tallest.

That's enough for now, more tech records to come.
I also found a sheet predicting records for 2000 in the 1974 edition. Most were pretty accurate. 
 

I only pretend to know what I'm talking about. Heck, that's what lawyers, car mechanics, and IT professionals do everyday. Wink&&The Rig: &&AMD Athlon XP2000+ Palomino, ECS K7S5A 3.1, 1GB PC2700 DDR, Geforce FX5200 128mb, SB Live Platinum, 16xDVD, 16x10x40x CDRW, 40/60gb 7200rpm HDD, 325w Power, Windows XP Home SP1, Directx 9.0c with 66.81 Beta gfx drivers
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Reply #1 - Apr 22nd, 2003 at 4:00pm

Loafing Smurf   Offline
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Yup, we still reign with the tallest structure.

If any other country tries to make one taller, I'll tamper with the blue prints.

J/K  Grin Roll Eyes
 
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Reply #2 - Apr 22nd, 2003 at 9:39pm
Oso   Ex Member

 
Is that still taller than the building in Singapore or somewhere over there - if you add the height of the towers on top of it?
 
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Reply #3 - Apr 22nd, 2003 at 11:17pm

SilverFox441   Offline
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The CN Tower is the tallest free standing structure...the towers you are referring to are the tallest buildings.

They've seperated the category now as some complained that most of the CN Tower is uninhabitable and is only there for support.
 

Steve (Silver Fox) Daly
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Reply #4 - Apr 22nd, 2003 at 11:39pm

Oz   Offline
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Yeah, how technology evolves in the blink of an eye, imagine, just 100 years ago, the first airplane was made of wood and some weak material and looked barely airworthy to our standards, then 100 years into the future, we've got giant 747's flying high, fighter jets thatn can go past mach 2, and space vehicles going into orbit....imagine what things will be like in 100 more years.... Cheesy  Wink
 
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Reply #5 - Apr 23rd, 2003 at 6:19am

Maccers   Offline
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Quote:
Can do complex math problems in 1 second which would otherwise take 1 person 10 million years to do with a pencil and calculator.

thats a long time to find a piece of paper to use the pencil with! Grin lol

 

...&&Athlon XP 1800+, 1GB RAM, Asus V9560 FX 5600 256Mb, 40Gb HDD
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Reply #6 - Apr 23rd, 2003 at 1:50pm

ozzy72   Offline
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The tallest building in the world these days is acknowledged as the Petronias Towers in Malaysia.
As for computer technology, it appears that Gordon Moore was bang on with Moores Law! I can't wait to see what happens in the next 3 decades. Its going to be v.exciting times to live in.

Ozzy Grin
 

...
There are two types of aeroplane, Spitfires and everything else that wishes it was a Spitfire!
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Reply #7 - Apr 23rd, 2003 at 3:02pm

Iroquois   Offline
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The GBofR used to separate the categories but don't anymore. The CN Tower has been categorized as tallest building where as the Petronas Towers (1482ft) in Kuala Lampur are categorized as tallest office building.
Also the New World Trade Center will still be 200ft shorter than the CN tower.
 

I only pretend to know what I'm talking about. Heck, that's what lawyers, car mechanics, and IT professionals do everyday. Wink&&The Rig: &&AMD Athlon XP2000+ Palomino, ECS K7S5A 3.1, 1GB PC2700 DDR, Geforce FX5200 128mb, SB Live Platinum, 16xDVD, 16x10x40x CDRW, 40/60gb 7200rpm HDD, 325w Power, Windows XP Home SP1, Directx 9.0c with 66.81 Beta gfx drivers
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Reply #8 - Apr 23rd, 2003 at 6:52pm

katana_1000   Offline
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comp stats practicly double every what month?in 2010 if u buy a week old comp it will be obsolete and not handle alot of software:Panyway think of where weve come  in half a century.my wrist watch(about 1.5"² and width of .4")is more powerful and faster than the worlds first comp which was 30 tons and filled a room.ENIAC could do i think addition in 2 sec,multiplication in 6 sec,and division in 12 seconds.subtraction i think 3-4 seconds.my watch does all that in 1/2 a second and ALSO has an alarm,time,stop watch,and zulu time.
 

......&&and yet i cant say it in the chat room:P&&&&http://airliners.net/random.inc&&&&;
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Reply #9 - Apr 23rd, 2003 at 7:10pm

Loafing Smurf   Offline
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An interesting reference to make is that in the late 1960s we made it to the moon. A hundred years before there were barely metal ships.

It make you wonder what can happen in the next hundred. Will it be like The Jettsons, or like in The movie Minority Report.
 
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