Index & Notes

2007 Computer Ad Page from the Calgary Sun

I like how this set of ads from last months Sun has all different products and numbers, but exactly the same format - computer ads have become a classic literary genre, like the murder mystery. Notice how the whole range of prices have dropped. Decent machines for $600, the high-end offerings are still under a thousand. That's a near four-fold drop in the price range over less than 20 years. My rule-of-thumb is that the market now takes four out of five of their Moore's Law doublings in the form of increased power and memory, but the fifth in the form of lower price ranges - prices seem to about halve every decade.

© Roy Brander, P.Eng 2008