Mag Computer: A Mag History of RAM (1960–2025)

Summary

Click to read the transcript for the episode. [0.8s] Saul: Hello and welcome to Mag World, where we like to ask big questions, make wild guesstimates, and quantify literally everything on a magnitude scale. Just remember that every order of magnitude is a big deal, because as we say at Mag World, quantity has a quality all of its own. If you wanna learn more about Mag World, come visit our website at magworld.pw. I’m Saul Pwanson, your guide to Mag World, and I’m here with my friend Mike, who’s used a computer. [27.5s] Mike: Yes, and I’m curious, are we going to use this one here during the episode? Should I turn it on? [31.8s] Saul: Yes, please do. [32.5s] Mike: All right. [47.8s] Saul: So today’s episode is Mag Computer. The good old Apple II booting up. Um, actually, we’re gonna need to be online for this. Could you log us onto the internet, Mike? [01:01.1] Mike: Uh, yes, yeah. All right, give it a couple minutes, but then we’ll be there. [01:17.1] Saul: It’s not that long. Okay, here we are. We’re online now. So computers are one of the topics that inspired Mag World in the first place. I mean, I’ve loved computers basically since I was born, and each magnitude of computer that I’ve experienced has had a quality all of its own. [01:35.2] Mike: Will you kind of explain to me what these different mag levels of computer are? [01:42.0] Saul: Yes, great question. So I use RAM as a proxy for compute power. Gordon Moore, you’ve heard of Moore’s Law? [01:51.1] Mike: Absolutely. It’s something about the doubling time for processing power, something like that. [01:57.0] Saul: It’s actually about the density of transistors, that you’ll have m- twice as many transistors on an integrated circuit, and th- th- that doubling time being, I think, 18 months initially. And this was initially specified in 1965 and then revised in 1975 to be every two years instead. But it’s held true, or it did hold true, for some 40 years, and it might be flattening now, I guess we’ll still see. B...