While reading the ArsTechnica review of MAC OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) I came across this tidbit.
[ Moore’s Law is widely cited in technology circles—and also widely misunderstood. It’s most often used as shorthand for “computers double in speed every year or so,” but that’s not what Gordon Moore wrote at all. His 1965 article in Electronics magazine touched on many topics in the semiconductor industry, but if it had to be summed up in a single “law”, it would be, roughly, that the number of transistors that fit onto a square inch of silicon doubles every 12 months.
Moore later revised that to two years, but the time period is not what people get wrong. The problem is confusing a doubling of transistor density with a doubling of “computer speed.” (Even more problematic is declaring a “law” based on a single paper from 1965, but we’ll put that aside for now. For a more thorough discussion of Moore’s Law, please read this classic article by Jon Stokes.) ]
Interesting stuff.