The release of dynamic RAM and video games came within months of each other. Robert Dennards 1966 discovery meant one chip can hold a billion or more RAM cells- we were on the way to super information storage/transfer. One of the first applications was of course entertainment: in ‘67 Ralph Bae played the first two-player video game, (which he lost).
From this point on, every year the processing power of our machines has doubled: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 etc. In thirty years, that’s 1000000000% (billion) growth, or improvement in power. As fast and capable as technology becomes, it also shrinks. Each passing year the number of transistors that can fit into a square inch is also growing exponentially. This is commonly referred to as Moore’s law (Webopedia: Moore’s Law is the observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future.)
The End of Moore’s Law & The Rise of AI:
Gordon Moore has a history of being correct about the future. He will make some other interesting observations and predictions which this chart will lean on later in the wheel.