Today's Wow - Tomorrow's Laugh
July 17, 2008
I interviewed for my first real job out of college back in 1989. I went to Texas Instrument's headquarters in Dallas, and I remember being greeted by one of the directors in the memory design devision. He walked me over to a large framed picture on the wall. It wasn't an aireal photo of their new buildings or massive facilities that they were building, rather it was a microscope photo of their 4 Megabit DRAM chip - the world's first. He was proud, and I was impressed. I took the job!
Today you can easily buy a 4 Gigabit DRAM chip (exactly 1000 times bigger), and we have GigaBYTE memory cards all over the place for our cameras and cell phones.
It's funny how some things get more impressive over time, while others get no respect. Given what was available at the time, the 4 Meg DRAM was a monumental achievement.
-- Greg