The Macintosh Is 30. Just how far have we come? (stat comparison)

by Michael Sitver · January 24

Happy Birthday Mac! You’ve gotten old, but you look great. I’m normally not so candid with the elderly on their birthday, but I’d just like to reflect on how far you’ve come.

By your first birthday, yes you were beautiful, but you were still very immature. Seeing you 30 years later, you’ve really grown. Let’s take a look at exactly how much you’ve changed, my dear Mac.

How Far Has The Mac Come?

Your ancestor, the original Macintosh had 128k of RAM. Your relative the 2013 Mac Pro has 64 Gigabytes in the top model, aproximately 524,000 times as much RAM.
Your ancestor had a nine inch screen with a 512×342 pixel display. The latest 15 inch macbook pro has a 2,560×1,600 pixel display.
And how about weight? Your ancestors were a bit chubby, weighing in at 16.5 pounds. The 11 inch macbook air weighs in at 2.38 pounds. And your cousins, the iPad and iPhone are even lighter. The iPad Mini weighs just .68 pounds, while the iPhone 5S weighs just 3.95 ounces, less than a quarter of a pound.
And what about processors? Remember your 8 Mhz, single core processor. Your progeny have advanced quite a bit. The new Mac Pros have six cores, 3.5 gigahertz each. Each of those cores is 440 times as powerful as the original Mac’s procesor.
Despite all these advancements, pricing has gone way down. The original Mac Pro cost its buyers $2,500, which adjusted for inflation is closer to $5,600. $5,600 today would buy you a near-top-of-the-line Mac Pro. The base price for the current Mac Pro today is $3,000. Of course, you’ll pay a lot more for energy, considering that the latest Mac Pros use 15 times the power.