mainframes and other stuff - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

24 Nov 2014

At 12:32 PM 11/24/2014, you wrote:
...
  To give a more modern
perspective on things - how much gold do you think is in a Pentium Pro
microprocessor? Thick plate over a large surface area...go look it up,
and you will probably be surprised. Then do some back of the napkin
calculations on the surface area of the PPro, compared to thousands
upon thousands of pins in a 2075... 
Let's say that a Pentium Pro has a third of a gram; a troy ounce is
31.1 grams; so 94 Pentium Pro to the troy ounce; 4.5 pounds is about
65 troy ounces; so 6,182 Pentium Pro might have that much gold.

The price of gold was still $35 a troy ounce in 1970; so that S/360's 
gold cost about $2,300 (or what feels like about $14,000 today.)  
In 2013 at $1,200 an ounce, that S/360's gold was worth $78,720.

- John