The difference between 1965 and today is our current point in time coupled with Moore's Law. From 1965 it took decades just to reach the 1 million transistor count; now we are in a position to add billions of transistors every year. In fact IBM developed a computer to mimic cortical columns in the mammalian brain called TrueNorth with 5.4 billion transistors. So think about this, in less than 4 years IBM matched what took 40-years for the world to achieve... the power of compounding from our current technological level is simply going to shock people over the coming years. 1971-2011
You're completely forgetting the fact that Moore's "law" is starting to slow down and transistor density is hitting physical limitations.
We hit 1 billion in 2011 and in 2014 the SPARC M7 was up to 10 billion transistors - so Moore's Law has not slowed yet, though I agree with you that progress could slow a little while they transition away from silicone and its physical limitations (i.e. overheating) before moving to the next generation of carbon nanotube chips. Chips made with nanotube transistors, which could be five times faster, should be ready around 2020, says IBM. Gordon Moore talked about this subject last month; "R.C.: You’ve predicted the end of Moore’s Law several times in the past. How long do you think it will continue? G.M.: Well, I have never quite predicted the end of it. I’ve said I could never see more than the next couple of [chip] generations, and after that it looked like [we’d] hit some kind of wall. But those walls keep receding. I’m amazed at how creative the engineers have been in finding ways around what we thought were going to be pretty hard stops. Now we’re getting to the point where it’s more and more difficult, and some of the laws are quite fundamental.." http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/gordon-moore-the-man-whose-name-means-progress
I have a mate like that, tries to act intelligent by repeating things, but really has no clue what he is repeating.
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