Speed and Size
Bigger, better and smaller
Moore's law
In 1985, G. E. Moore, co-founder of Intel, formulated his observations of the trends in computer development as 'Moore's Law'. The number of transistors on an integrated had increased exponentially since 1958, doubling approximately every two years. Other computer parameters, including the number of pixels in a camera also exhibit exponential growth.
For example, the Tandy Model 1 had a speed of about two and a half MegaHertz, addressed a maximum of 64 KiloBytes, had a video output of 16 lines each of 64 characters. The graphical output was 128 'pixels' by 48 in two colours (black and white). This amounts to 768 Bytes. Storage was somewhat indeterminate as programs were stored on audio cassette tape recorders. The first hard drives had a capacity of about 10 MegaBytes. In this last parameter alone the increase is to 1 Terabyte.
It is perhaps a good thing, that there are four more prefixes beyond tera:-D
Anyway! Here is the full set of prefixes in case you want it sometime, or even if you don't.
| Power of Thousands |
Power of Tens |
Prefix name |
Factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10008 | 1024 | yotta- | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 |
| 10007 | 1021 | zetta | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 |
| 10006 | 1018 | exa- | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 |
| 10005 | 1015 | peta- | 1,000,000,000,000,000 |
| 10004 | 1012 | tera- | 1,000,000,000,000 |
| 10003 | 109 | giga- | 1,000,000,000 |
| 10002 | 106 | mega | 1,000,000 |
| 1,0001 | 103 | kilo- | 1,000 |
| 10002/3 | 102 | hecto- | 100 |
| 10001/3 | 101 | deca- | 10 |
| 10000 | 100 | none | 1 |
| 1000-1/3 | 10-1 | deci- | 0.1 |
| 1000-2/3 | 10-2 | centi- | 0.01 |
| 1000-1 | 10-3 | milli- | 0.001 |
| 1000-2 | 10-6 | micro- | 0.000,001 |
| 1000-3 | 10-9 | nano- | 0.000,000,001 |
| 1000-4 | 10-12 | pico- | 0.000,000,000,001 |
| 1000-5 | 10-15 | femto- | 0.000,000,000,000,001 |
| 1000-6 | 10-18 | atto- | 0.000,000,000,000,000,001 |
| 1000-7 | 10-21 | zepto- | 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,001 |
| 1000-8 | 10-24 | yocto- | 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 |
In computing, the factor is often not 1000, but 1024 (=210).
