In the early 1970s, in an act of amazing foresight and openmindedness, the School, with help from local businesses, bought a computer for the boys. This was a Digital Corporation DEC PDP8E, with 8k of memory, which is to say, 8192 bytes. One communicated with it via two teletype keyboards/ printers, and later via a screen (in black and white) with associated keyboard, known as the VDU (Visual Display Unit). Pleasingly, it had a lot of flashing lights on the front.
Because of its value – it cost over £6,000. Does that sound a lot? A laptop today with ten million times the storage and ten million times the speed (not to mention many times the functionality) costs £400. But it was even more expensive than you may think. In 1975 the average annual wage of a bus driver was of the order of £2,500, and so (ignoring tax) it would have cost him 2-3 years of work to buy that computer. Today a bus driver earns around £32,500, and it would cost him around 3 days work to buy a modern laptop. Hurrah for Moore’s Law.
by Stephen Walsh (67-76)
