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Old 01-31-2009, 12:06 AM   #8
Alisa
Gadget Geek
Alisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongueAlisa can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his or her tongue
 
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Posts: 2,324
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Device: Paperwhite, Kindle 3 (retired), Skindle 1.2 (retired)
Quote:
Originally Posted by kaas View Post
I remember my first pc, a Intel DX 33 with 170MB HDD and 2 MB RAM running Win 3.1. While Word and Excel weren't very flashy, I did not think of it as slow. It did everything I wanted and I kept working with it untill 1998, since I did not have a lot of money (was still a HJigh School student back then).
The intel Atom with 800 MHz uses 0,65 Watt. Using a slower processor, say 200 MHz, you could get as low as 0,15 Watt. Add some flash memory (the Indian pc won't have a HDD) and a slow Display, and voila: a cheap pc capable of running all essential programs.
And now imagine that in hands of people who wouldn't ever have been able to afford a different computer...
I read an interesting article a year or so ago where they put a modern computer head to head with an old Apple II. It wasn't a benchmark comparison. That would've been quickly decisive. Instead it was a timing of tasks with the software contemporary to the computer. They did tasks like booting up, loading typical programs like Word and Excel, doing copies and pastes, saving documents, etc. It was pretty much neck and neck. Apple II won on some. Modern computer won on some. The deltas were very small. Our computers have gotten so much faster but our software has expanded to use the capacity.
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