The Air has a 50 W/h battery. That's 50W for a full hour. So if they are saying that it would last 2.5 seconds, that means the putative 1990s computer would have to consume 60 x 24 x 50 = 72,000 Watts!
Someone at the Atlantic needs to figure out basic math.
i.e. they estimated that it would take 72,000 Watts-worth of 1990s computers to match the processing power of a Macbook Air.
Though that does add further caveats to an already less-than-ideal comparison (as an MBA is not going to last seven hours at 100% CPU load).
If they are going to compare it with computational power, they should also factor in battery development since 1990.
It would take an awful lot of 1990's machines to equal the computing power of a macbook air.
Completely nonsensical, I'll grant you.
A Model 100 was pretty much the opposite of the iPad: great for creative activities (writing, taking notes, programming) but poor for consumption activities.
(
I'll need someone to knock up a Twitter reading client in MPW too, pls)We'd definitely all be driving electric cars today if that happened.
The best (commercial) batteries today are only a few times better than the ones used in electric cars 100 years ago.
