Polaroid Cameras I Digital Camera User Manual


 
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Addendum 2: Digital cameras versus the Space Shuttle
I make the comment all the time, “Your digital camera has more computing
power than the space shuttle! Is that true? Let’s look at the facts:
Space Shuttle:
Camera:
Computer:
Computer is a hardened derivative of the
IBM 360 mainframe, first introduced in
1964.
480,000 operations per second
Most use an advanced RISC processor, 80
MHz, with one operation per clock.
80,000,000 operations per second
Advantage Camera: 166x
Memory:
700 Kbytes core memory
Internal: 32 Mbytes
Card: 128 Mbytes
Advantage Camera: 228x
Cost:
$5 billion development, Minimum
$113,000 (1964 dollars) each.
$150 - $600 (2004 dollars) or more