The Trends of Today

Computers and Moore's Law

In order to understand today's technological trends, it helps to take a look at how they have
developed over the years. Even in education, computers have a long history. For example, the
ENIAC, built at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering between
1944 and 1946, was the first large-scale general-purpose electronic computer (Goldschmidt &
Akera, 1998). It weighed 30-tons, contained 19,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and consumed
almost 200 kilowatts of electrical power (Weik, 1961). Designed to calculate trajectory tables for
new guns, the ENIAC failed on an average of every seven minutes, but when it worked it could
compute 10-digit multiplication in 3/1000th of a second -- a huge accomplishment for its day
(Jukes & McCain, 1997).

More recently, the 1980 model Cray supercomputer was the fastest machine of its day. It cost 

$12 million, weighed five tons, and consumed 150kW of electricity -- all this and it had only 8MB 

of RAM and operated at speed of 80 MHz (Jukes & McCain, 1997). By comparison, a used 

computer today with the same capabilities can be purchased for under $300. 

 Since the popularization of the desktop computer in the 1980s, we have become painfully aware 

of how quickly computers become outdated. Many of today's educators point to this trend in their 

argument against the use of computers. This trend of increased power at lower cost is likely to 

continue well into the next century and has popularly become known as Moore's Law, after 

Gordon Moore, the cofounder of Intel Corporation. In 1965 he suggested (half in jest) that 

technology doubled in processing power approximately every 18 months and at the same time 

the price for that technology declined by about 35% a year relative to this power. The accuracy of 

Mr. Moore's prediction has proven to be frighteningly accurate. The table below (Tab. 1) 

illustrates the effects of Moore's Law from 1984 to 1999, with some minor adjustments. In a 1993 

speech, Randall Tobias, the Vice Chairman of AT&T, put Moore's Law in perspective when he 

said, "...if we had had similar gains in automotive technology, today you could buy a Lexus for 

about $2. It would travel at the speed of sound, and go 600 miles on a thimble of gas. It would be 

only three inches long...but easy to parallel park!" (pg. 244).

(Assumptions: Every 18 months RAM doubles in size, HD increase 275% in size, CPU speed 

increases 40%, and cost drops 10%).

Moore's Law
                                              1984             1990                  1999
RAM      (in Megabytes)         0.13               2                         131
HD        (in Megabytes)           0.4               23                         10000
CP        (in MHz)                    10                51                         411
Cost                                $4,000.00      $2,600.00             $1,400.00
                                        Table 1 - Moore's Law

Taking the reverse stance of education, business and industry have adopted the approach of
staying up-to-date with technology. The current economy appears to support the notion that this
approach is valid, yet the majority of our schools continue to adopt the approach of remaining
several technological generations behind business and industry.