My, now way out of date, Macintosh Dual G-4 Processor Tower has more raw computing power than the mainframe that 1970's memory was destined for. It is faster and has a higher throughput. The applications I'm running were undreamed of, except at Medialab, in the 70's.
The speed with which computer technology has evolved is simply stunning when you take it all in. I've been using it since the first Mac in the mid 80's and the Mac I am using now bears only a slight resemblance to that first machine with it's 512K of memory and single sided hard floppy - with no hard drive available at all.
The speed with which computer technology has evolved is simply stunning when you take it all in.
But it's almost all used for eye candy, and I think to some extent all that eye candy is deadening of kids' imagination. When you think about what most people use computers for, most of the time -- word processing and email, not A/V work -- all that computing power is total overkill.
As it happens, I too have a dual processor G4 mac. But I sometimes find myself missing my old Mac II, the SE/30, and even my 48k Apple II+. They booted faster, for one thing.
Once every blue moon I'll fire up an emulator and play Wizardry.