Sometimes Size Really Does Matter

1980 to 2010 %u2013 8 IBM 3380 Disk Systems versus 1 MicroSD Card [Image] - How-To Geek.

Only 30 years ago, in 1980, supercomputers looked like the IBM 3380 cabinets on the left. They were taller than a man, and had to be moved by forklifts. Each one cost about $648,000 and had huge, heavy disks inside that stored a total of 2.5 Gigabytes of data. They were housed in huge server rooms that had to be temperature controlled, and were accessed from a central desk and terminal. Only one user at a time, thank you. That user was like the gatekeeper in a scifi movie. He was the Lord of the Kingdom. He had a lot of minions who performed peripheral tasks, and who sucked up salaries. Fast forward to today, when a smaller than a postage stamp solid state devices can hold 32 - 64 Gigabytes of data for under $100. I hope I am alive in another 30 years. It will be "interesting".