My mom gave me the Clie NX60 for Christmas (and my next birthday – it’s not cheap). We got to talking about its capabilities compared to my first computer, and compared to my first IBM-clone (which is what they were called 10 years ago).
For comparison purposes, the first computer I had was a Commodore VIC20 in 1981; the first PC I had was a 486 made by CompUSA in 1992.
RAM – VIC20 had 3.5k, PC had 4 megs (I splurged), and the Clie has 16 megs.
CPU Mhz – VIC20 had a 1.01MHz 6502A, PC was 33Mhz 80486, and Clie has a 200 Mhz ARM.
Resolution – VIC20 was 176×184 pixels with 16 colors (or 22×23 text blocks), the PC had VGA standard settings (640×480 at 256 colors and so on), the Clie has 320×480 and 16-bit (65,536 colors).
Storage – VIC20 had a tape drive (not even going to guess the capacity of that), PC had 120 MB hard drive (I had the upgraded model), Clie can handle a removable 128 MB memory stick.
Cost – VIC20 cost $300 without a monitor or tape drive; PC cost about $2000 with monitor and mouse and all, Clie costs $500 without any storage (add a 128 MB memory stick for 65 bucks from Amazon and it is still under $600).
In pretty much every way, the Clie is more powerful and more upgradeable than the PC ten years ago, and I think my watch is more powerful than the VIC20 from 20 years ago.
Is there any way to extrapolate and guess where things will be in another 10 years? I think we’re going to be surprised.
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