Is it true that modern PCs are faster than 70s 80s and early 90s Supercomputers ?

[scania_gti]

Hardware parameters - not realy talk about computer speed.
I think, modern PC with modern OS not faster than old supercomputers with theirs OS

[Bandit]

Hardware parameters - not realy talk about computer speed.
I think, modern PC with modern OS not faster than old supercomputers with theirs OS

Dont think response time of outdated applications loading is in question. But how they would fair against one or another given a benchmarking based on equal grounds if it is even possible.

[KiwiNZ]

Given that the computer is the operating software the processing power of current OS's is vastly greater than the software from the 70's or 80's, that means that modern computers are faster.

[jmore9]

I once had a 8088 based machine. Now this was top of the line when it first came out. I think it is an 8 bit cpu don't remember for sure. A modern cpu is 32 bits or 64bits / dual core.

There was no internet back then, We had what is known as BBS systems. You used your telephone and a dialup modem to access it. It had forums, game windows, downloads, etc. Just had to be sure you called a local number or the long distance tolls could cost you a lot of money.

There was no such thing as hard drives back then. We got all our software on 5 and quarter inch floppy disks. I thnk they were 180k storage, i have a total of 16 megs of rams and thought i was at the top of the world , the max possible at that time.

The video was on a green screen crt monitor no flat panels/lcds back then. I rememeber getting a copy of word perfect and it came on a bunch of 5 quater inch floppies and it ran in dos.

Everything ran in dos back then. When windows 3.1 version one came out it was mostly a graphical file manager. The first true windows operating system in my opinion was windows 95 second edition.

[forrestcupp]

PS. I was a big SGI fan and still would not mind owning one of their boxes.

When I was going to college in 1991, there was a Sun Microsystems store down the road from me that sold SGI Unix boxes. If I recall correctly, the hardware specs were unbelievable compared to all the mainstream PCs back then. The prices definitely reflected that, though.

[Bandit]

I once had a 8088 based machine. Now this was top of the line when it first came out. I think it is an 8 bit cpu don't remember for sure. A modern cpu is 32 bits or 64bits / dual core.

There was no internet back then, We had what is known as BBS systems. You used your telephone and a dialup modem to access it. It had forums, game windows, downloads, etc. Just had to be sure you called a local number or the long distance tolls could cost you a lot of money.

There was no such thing as hard drives back then. We got all our software on 5 and quarter inch floppy disks. I thnk they were 180k storage, i have a total of 16 megs of rams and thought i was at the top of the world , the max possible at that time.

The video was on a green screen crt monitor no flat panels/lcds back then. I rememeber getting a copy of word perfect and it came on a bunch of 5 quater inch floppies and it ran in dos.

You make it sound like it was all that long ago.. hehe
I somewhat miss those days, life seemed simpler. Always had a blast making colored ASCII graphics for my uncles BBS.

[jmore9]

Best video game was the bouncing ball that you had to catch with the up and down slider on each side. Forgot the name of the game now. Tennis ?

[Paqman]

Best video game was the bouncing ball that you had to catch with the up and down slider on each side. Forgot the name of the game now. Tennis ?

Pong!