Today I recycled about $9 Billion worth of perfectly good computer memory.
Okay, that’s not exactly true; not today anyway. But in 1970 it would have been. Let me explain.
The amount of memory I tossed out today was 16 gigabytes (16 GB) spread over several small circuit cards. In bits, this is 128 gigabits (or 128,000,000,000 bits). In 1970, when solid state dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) first became commercially available, its cost was about 1 cent per bit. So, in 1970, the equivalent DRAM (if it had been available in these quantities) would have cost $1.28 Billion. In today’s dollars, that would be more than $9 Billion.
In 1970, the IBM System/370 model 145 mainframe computer could be configured with as much as 500 kilobytes (0.004 gigabits) of main memory. This system used some of the first DRAM solid state memory available, and that 500 KB of memory would have cost about $40,000 at the time. The entire computer system sold for around $2 Million. The amount of memory I discarded today could have populated about 32,000 of those giant room-sized computers. There were probably fewer than 100 in existence at that time.
If we look back a bit further to the mid to late 1960’s, we would have been using Magnetic Core memory. It’s cost then was about $1/bit. So, at that time, my 16 GB of memory would have set me back $128 Billion and would have occupied about 312,500 cubic feet of space. That is roughly the volume of 55,700 barrels of oil or 2.3 million gallons.
If we venture back even further to the days of vacuum tube-based computers in the 1950s, things get even crazier. Then, a single bit was stored in a plug-in circuit using one tube and a few other components. That single-bit device measured about 5 inches in length by about 1 inch in diameter. Each one consumed somewhere between 5 and 10 watts of power. If I had to put together 16 GB (128Gb) of memory using that technology, it would require somewhere between 640 and 1280 Gigawatts of power. This is roughly the amount created by 32 to 64 Hoover Dams. And the amount of space required? Something over 645,000,000 cubic feet, before allowing for any gaps between the units. Of course, none of this would have been practical by any measure. Even ignoring the astronomical cost and space, the amount of heat produced by all those tubes and their high failure rates would have created an engineering impossibility.
Today, I can go online and buy 16 GB of memory for less than $50 and it would fit on a single circuit card measuring 1.75 X 2.75 inches that would snap into my laptop computer in a matter of minutes. It would consume a couple of watts of power, amounting to about 1 billionth of a Hoover Dam.
So, we’ve come an astounding distance in a short time, technologically speaking. Wouldn’t it be nice if we’d been able to make even a small fraction of that progress in learning to live peacefully together on this planet while taking good care of it? Maybe we still can. We’ve been known to do some amazing things.