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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

> We consequently plan on a fully automatic electronic storage facility of about 4,000 numbers of 40 binary digits each... We believe that this memory capacity exceeds the capacity required for most problems that one deals with at present by a factor of about 10.

"160kb should be enough for anyone" but with a refreshing dollop of humility

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Indeed. Considering that the "problems that one deals with at present" were generally calculations of ballistic trajectory for war materiel, this was an entirely accurate statement. As the cost and complexity increase rather rapidly as storage increases, there was inverse incentive to build a system bigger than one "needs". Like building a pedestrian bridge that could support 50 tonnes of weight. But yes, judged by today's standards it's an amusing scale, similar to reading newspaper articles about the menace of early automobiles "hurtling down the roadway at dizzying speeds" of 50 miles per hour. In a hundred years, people will have the same chuckle at our "TB of data" and "high-res images" -- What? No volumetric full-color holograms?

> But yes, judged by today's standards it's an amusing scale...

I don't really find it that amusing tbh -- after all, such a memory "organs" filled large buildings for quite a long stretch. I'm most curious to see the exponential growth -- 160kb in 1946 becomes 640kB in the early 80s, and today my desktop has 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD and HDD each.

just fact-checked myself, and was reminded that the quote associated with billg is apocryphal

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