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The Lounge What is on Your Mind? A chronology of computing power Post 302469576 by figaro on Sunday 7th of November 2010 03:34:28 AM
Old 11-07-2010
A chronology of computing power

This is a brief overview of where computing performance is heading. The exponential rise in CPU performance as predicted by Moore's law is apparently also true for individual components, at least when looking at historical data.

RAM / working memory
The following is an overview of the year in which the first computer came to the mass market with the given amount of working memory. The numbers are extrapolated to reflect that there is a thousandfold increase every 17 years.

Code:
Year	Name 	Symbol	Exponent
1971	kilo- 	k	3
1988	mega- 	M	6
2005	giga- 	G	9
2022	tera- 	T	12
2039	peta- 	P	15
2056	exa- 	E	18
2073	zetta- 	Z	21
2090	yotta- 	Y	24
2107	xona- 	X	27
2124	weka- 	W	30
2141	vunda- 	V	33
2158	uda- 	U	36
2175	treda- 	TD	39
2192	sorta- 	S	42
2209	rinta- 	R	45
2226	quexa- 	Q	48
2243	pepta- 	PP	51
2260	ocha- 	O	54
2277	nena- 	N	57
2294	minga- 	MI	60
2311	luma- 	L	63

The years may be one year off and the exponential growth has only been achieved for 3 generations, so the extrapolation may start to deviate substantially after another 5 generations or so. Hence, this should only serve as an idea as to when you will be able to buy your first exa-computer, roughly.
Also note that a luma-computer would require the same amount of atoms as the earth is built up of.

HDD / mechanical storage
There appears to be a 17 year cycle for storage devices too. The list below contains the years in which the first storage device came to the mass market with given amount of capacity:

Code:
1957	3	K
1974	6	M
1991	9	G
2008	12	T
2025	15	P
2042	18	E

Perhaps grid storage or cloud storage will replace the majority of local storage in the next 10 years, even for home computers. By 2042 there may be no HDD needed for any computer as mechanical devices for storage will have been replaced by other means of storage, making these numbers meaningless.

FLOPS
The following article assumes an 11-year cycle in thousandfold increases in computing power:
All hail Roadrunner's petaflop record; now, what about the exaflop? - Computerworld

Code:
1986	9	G
1997	12	T
2008	15	P
2019	18	E
2030	21	Z
2041	24	Y
2052	27	X
2063	30	W

 

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EXP(3)							   BSD Library Functions Manual 						    EXP(3)

NAME
exp, expf, expl, exp2, exp2f, exp2l, expm1, expm1f, expm1l, pow, powf -- exponential and power functions LIBRARY
Math Library (libm, -lm) SYNOPSIS
#include <math.h> double exp(double x); float expf(float x); long double expl(long double x); double exp2(double x); float exp2f(float x); long double exp2l(long double x); double expm1(double x); float expm1f(float x); long double expm1l(long double x); double pow(double x, double y); float powf(float x, float y); DESCRIPTION
The exp(), expf(), and expl() functions compute the base e exponential value of the given argument x. The exp2(), exp2f(), and exp2l() functions compute the base 2 exponential of the given argument x. The expm1(), expm1f(), and the expm1l() functions compute the value exp(x)-1 accurately even for tiny argument x. The pow() and the powf() functions compute the value of x to the exponent y. ERROR (due to Roundoff etc.) The values of exp(0), expm1(0), exp2(integer), and pow(integer, integer) are exact provided that they are representable. Otherwise the error in these functions is generally below one ulp. RETURN VALUES
These functions will return the appropriate computation unless an error occurs or an argument is out of range. The functions pow(x, y) and powf(x, y) raise an invalid exception and return an NaN if x < 0 and y is not an integer. NOTES
The function pow(x, 0) returns x**0 = 1 for all x including x = 0, infinity, and NaN . Previous implementations of pow may have defined x**0 to be undefined in some or all of these cases. Here are reasons for returning x**0 = 1 always: 1. Any program that already tests whether x is zero (or infinite or NaN) before computing x**0 cannot care whether 0**0 = 1 or not. Any program that depends upon 0**0 to be invalid is dubious anyway since that expression's meaning and, if invalid, its consequences vary from one computer system to another. 2. Some Algebra texts (e.g. Sigler's) define x**0 = 1 for all x, including x = 0. This is compatible with the convention that accepts a[0] as the value of polynomial p(x) = a[0]*x**0 + a[1]*x**1 + a[2]*x**2 +...+ a[n]*x**n at x = 0 rather than reject a[0]*0**0 as invalid. 3. Analysts will accept 0**0 = 1 despite that x**y can approach anything or nothing as x and y approach 0 independently. The reason for setting 0**0 = 1 anyway is this: If x(z) and y(z) are any functions analytic (expandable in power series) in z around z = 0, and if there x(0) = y(0) = 0, then x(z)**y(z) -> 1 as z -> 0. 4. If 0**0 = 1, then infinity**0 = 1/0**0 = 1 too; and then NaN**0 = 1 too because x**0 = 1 for all finite and infinite x, i.e., inde- pendently of x. SEE ALSO
fenv(3), ldexp(3), log(3), math(3) STANDARDS
These functions conform to ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (``ISO C99''). BSD
June 3, 2013 BSD
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