Complexity

August 11, 2005

When I built my first computer, in about 1977 or '78, the microprocessor it was based on (a National Semiconductor SC/MP) had 40 pins connecting it to the outside world, and I added 256 bytes of RAM.

The most recent machine I've assembled has a dual-core Intel Pentium 4, connected to its outside world by 775 pins — that's them right there in the photo. Not even counting external RAM, it has 4MB of cache, right there on the chip.

That's a whole lot of complexity increase in 28 years :-)

For Photo Friday Complexity.

Details: Nikon 50mm 1:1.8D, f/2.8, 1/60s, SB-800 flash, ISO 200.

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