It is a common misconception that computers are evolving and getting increasingly faster. In reality, modern systems are akin to a Ferrari with an RV trailer stuck to the rear fender. And bicycle tires. And the engineering equivalent of Alzheimer.

While from a merely mechanical point of view incredible progress is indeed constantly being made, real-world applications of the technology are haphazard and mired in incomprehension.

For one thing, modern computers are weighed down by modern operating systems. Once upon a time, the OS could be installed from a single floppy disk, 1.44MB of data. Nowadays we are in the order of several Gigabytes, that is, thousands of times heavier code.

Moreover, in a trend common within the misinformed (see the escalation of Megapixel turgidity among digital camera manufacturers), special buzzwords are promoted through advertising to snare unwary buyers in a net of bombastic mine-is-bigger-than-yours excesses. Hence the disorganized race to “higher clock speeds” (goody, if my clock runs faster, the working day will be over sooner); more RAM, for a wool new experience in computing; a bigger and meaner HD, to satisfy the inner biker within us.

In its most basic form, the performance of a computer can be said to depend on 4 factors:

Operating system, henceforth referred to as OS
Processor speed. This is the CPU, or Central Processing Unit, speed (frequency), and is measured in Gigahertz or GHz
Amount of memory. RAM, Random Access Memory, size should be measured in GB (Gigabytes)
Hard Drive (HD) size, speed and content. Once again the size should be measured in GB and the speed in RPM (Revolutions Per Minute)

In reality there are a myriad of other considerations, but they are outside the scope of this particular blog, so we’ll just proceed with a simplistic view of the aforementioned subjects.

Stay tuned for more detailed blogs in this series covering OS, CPU, RAM and Hard Drive!