Head to head

Compare any two computers

Pick two machines from 50 years of computing, or pit one against the phone in your pocket. Every number comes from the atlas catalogue.

Commodore · 1982

Commodore 64

Often listed as the best-selling single computer model of all time.

CPUMOS 6510 @ 1 MHz
Memory64 KB
StorageCassette (Datasette), 5.25" floppy
Launch price$595 ≈ $1,930 today
In the atlasBe the first to add it
VS

Apple · 2020

Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020)

No fan at all, and faster than most laptops of its day.

CPUApple M1 (8 cores) @ 3.2 GHz
Memory8 GB
Storage256 GB SSD
Launch price$999 ≈ $1,210 today
In the atlasBe the first to add it

The verdict

The Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020) has 131,072× the memory of the Commodore 64 and a clock 3,200× faster.

They are 38 years apart. Doubling every two years (Moore's law) would predict about 524,288×; the memory actually grew slower than that. Across the whole catalogue memory doubled every 1.9 years.

In today's money the Commodore 64 cost $720 more at launch.

Memory64 KB vs 8 GB
Clock speed1 MHz vs 3.2 GHz
Launch price, today's dollars$1,930 vs $1,210

Bars use a logarithmic scale so both machines stay visible.

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