On 2021-12-23 01:59, Bob Bridges wrote:
I'm enjoying the article so far, and I'm sure contributors will chime
in who are far more knowledgeable than I. But the first thing I
notice is that he spends some time estimating how inferior the early
7090 was to a modern laptop in terms of clock speed, RAM, and
tape-driven I/O, and concludes "So now the 7090 looks to have run at
about a quadrillionth (10-15) the speed of your 2021 laptop." The
first thing that leaps out at me is that he appears to be multiplying
the three comparative numbers to come up with a quadrillion. But that
isn't the proper way to compare speeds, is it? Surely the proper
comparison is only the slowest of the three.
Not to mention the silly typographical error of writing 10 to the 15th
as "10-15". I use "10e15", myself,
um, 10e15 is 10 x 10**15, or 1e16,
though I suppose in a magazine
with decent capabilities a superscript might look more professional.
This article, though, isn't comparing modern PCs to modern mainframes,
so no need to wax indignant.
---
Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313
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