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.

IBM · 1981

IBM PC (5150)

Its open design was copied by everyone. Today's Windows PCs are its direct descendants.

CPUIntel 8088 @ 4.77 MHz
Memory16 KB
StorageCassette, 5.25" floppy
Launch price$1,565 ≈ $5,400 today
In the atlasBe the first to add it
VS

Generic PC · 2021–today

A PC or laptop with Windows 11

Typical specs shown. The Start button moved to the middle.

CPUIntel Core / AMD Ryzen @ 4 GHz
Memory16 GB
Storage512 GB SSD
In the atlasBe the first to add it

The verdict

The A PC or laptop with Windows 11 has 1 million× the memory of the IBM PC (5150) and a clock 839× faster.

They are 41 years apart. Doubling every two years (Moore's law) would predict about 1.5 million×; the memory actually grew slower than that. Across the whole catalogue memory doubled every 1.9 years.

Memory16 KB vs 16 GB
Clock speed4.77 MHz vs 4 GHz

Bars use a logarithmic scale so both machines stay visible.

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