Computer Hardware Progress in Video Game Consoles Over The Years

The following list shows the incredible improvement in video game consoles over the last 40 years. This steady improvement was driven by the same technological factors that drive Moore’s law. You can see the CPU, RAM, hard drive, and resolution specifications for over 30 game machines.

The first item on our list, the Magnavox Odyssey from 1972, can barely be considered a computer. It didn’t have a CPU, RAM, or a hard drive, and its video output was just a few pixels. But all of the other consoles can be compared to each other in a pretty straightforward way. As you can see CPU speed increased over one thousandfold, and RAM memory increased over a millionfold in the same span of time.

There may be some errors in this list, and I had to fudge a few of the numbers in order to create an apples to apples comparison. But I checked the numbers with multiple sources, so overall the list should be pretty reliable.

Video Game Console Specification Comparison

Year	Console Computer System	CPU Speed Hz	RAM Memory Bytes	Hard Drive Capacity Bytes	Screen Resolution Pixels
1972	Magnavox Odyssey	0	0	0	n/a
1977	Atari 2600	1,190,000	128	0	160 x 192
1979	Magnavox Odyssey 2	1,790,000	192	0	160 x 200
1980	Intellivision	2,000,000	524	0	159 x 96
1982	Atari 5200	1,790,000	16,000	0	320 x 200
1982	Colecovision	3,580,000	2,000	0	256 x 192
1985	Nintendo Ent. Sys.	1,800,000	2,000	0	256 x 240
1986	Sega Master Sys.	4,000,000	8,000	0	256 x 192
1986	Atari 7800	1,790,000	4,000	0	320 x 240
1989	Gameboy	4,190,000	8,000	0	160 x 144
1989	Turbo Grafx 16	7,160,000	256,000	0	256 x 239
1989	Sega Genesis	8,000,000	72,000	0	320 x 224
1991	Super Nintendo	3,600,000	128,000	0	160 x 144
1991	Neo Geo	12,000,000	64,000	0	320 x 224
1991	Game Gear	3,500,000	8,000	0	160 x 144
1992	Sega CD	12,500,000	8,000	0	320 x 224
1993	Atari Jaguar	26,600,000	2,000,000	0	320 x 224
1994	Sega Saturn	58,000,000	2,000,000	4,000,000	704 x 224
1995	Playstation	33,000,000	2,000,000	1,000,000	640 x 480
1996	Nintendo 64	93,000,000	4,000,000	32,000	720 x 576
1998	Gameboy Color	8,380,000	32,000	0	160 x 144
1999	Sega Dreamcast	200,000,000	24,000,000	128,000	640 x 480
2000	Playstation 2	300,000,000	36,000,000	128,000	640 x 480
2001	Gamecube	486,000,000	43,000,000	16,000,000	640 x 480
2001	Gameboy Advance	16,780,000	256,000	0	240 x 160
2005	Xbox 360	3.200,000,000	512,000,000	20,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2006	Playstation 3	3,200,000,000	512,000,000	12,000,000,000	1280 x 720
2006	Nintendo Wii	729,000,000	88,000,000	512,000,000	640 x 480
2012	Nintendo Wii U	1,240,000,000	2,000,000,000	8,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2013	Playstation 4	12,800,000,000	8,000,000,000	500,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2013	Xbox One	14,000,000,000	8,000,000,000	500,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2016	Playstation 4 Pro	16,800,000,000	8,000,000,000	1,000,000,000,000	3840 x 2160
2017	Xbox One X	18,400,000,000	12,000,000,000	1,000,000,000,000	3840 x 2160
2017	Nintendo Switch	8,000,000,000	4,000,000,000	32,000,000,000	1920 x 1080
2020	Playstation 5	28,000,000,000	16,000,000,000	825,000,000,000	3840 x 2160
2020	Xbox Series X	30,400,000,000	16,000,000,000	1,000,000,000,000	3840 x 2160

Note that to obtain the newer, multicore systems’ CPU processing speed, the clock cycle was multiplied by the number of cores in the CPU. Of course this exaggerates speedup by failing to recognize Amdahl's law. Secondly, in a few early cases I combined VRAM with RAM where I thought is was appropriate, but in most I did not. Thirdly, note that hertz and bytes are expressed in a way that is not abbreviated. This allows a direct comparison and avoids using prefixes like kilo, mega, and giga.

This list makes me think back to fond memories of playing early video games in my childhood. I remember the day I first saw Super Mario Bros at age five on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The sights and sounds were dreamlike and hypnotic. It was a colorful cartoon with immersive music and sound effects that I could control myself (if I could just get the kid next to me to share the controller). Six years later at a different friend’s house I was introduced to the world of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. It was a beautiful, fast-moving landscape filled with dynamic and interactive objects, that by comparison was much more impressive.

The list above really sparks my imagination because I can look at the console specs of the first Nintendo, at just 2 kilobytes of RAM and compare it to that of the Sega Genesis at 72 kilobytes of RAM. These numbers illustrate the difference in constraints on those systems, and in turn, the difference in constraints on the programmers that created those worlds. I think it is fun to ask myself: “what does it mean that Sonic’s world was powered by over 30 times as much computer short-term memory?” Similarly: “what aspects of the graphical presentation are affected by the fact that the Genesis had more than four times the CPU clock speed?” I think the data in the columns and rows above give us an interesting basis to compare one gaming experience with another. Because we were immersed in these experiences from a young age I think that studying these comparisons can provide us with a better intuitive understanding of computer hardware.

Added 5/21/21

I recently realized that it might be fun to make a direct comparison between the different iterations of the Playstation based on CPU processing power. If you look at the numbers in the CPU column above and perform simple division (28 billion / 33 million) you can see that the PS5 is around 1000 times more powerful (faster at math) than the PS1. In a sense this means that you would need to somehow connect 1000 individual PS1s to perform the number of operations per second that a single PS5 can do alone. I think that is fun to think about, 1000 of those grey boxes. If you look at RAM that number multiplier turns into 8000x. Of course there are thousands of new technological innovations crammed into a PS5 aside from increased clock cycle and RAM so even these numbers are lowballing the difference. Here are the numerical comparisons by CPU alone:

PS2 = PS1 x 10

PS3 = PS1 x 100

PS3 = PS 2 x 10

 

PS4 = PS1 x 400

PS4 = PS2 x 40

PS4 = PS3 x 4

 

PS5 = PS1 x 1000

PS5 = PS2 x 100

PS5 = PS3 x 10

PS5 = PS4 x 3

If you found this interesting, please visit aithought.com. The site delves into my model of working memory and its application to AI, illustrating how human thought patterns can be emulated to achieve machine consciousness and superintelligence. Featuring over 50 detailed figures, the article provides a visually engaging exploration of how bridging the gap between psychology and neuroscience can unlock the future of intelligent machines.

Rehabilitating Your Laughter Will Make It Much More Pleasurable

The muscles involved in laughing have been traumatized by life-stress and it is well worth the effort to rehab them. As an infant your laugh was genuine and primordial. Combining anxiety with fake laughing, and worrying that your laugh is too aggressive has damaged your instinctual laughing pattern. As you might expect, people that are depressed or anxious have the least convincing laughs. Extremely dominant people laugh loudly, without hesitating, at whatever they like. But most people stifle their laugh in the same way that they stifle their posture, and breathing. This is why the laughs of most adults are eccentric, and largely deviated from the innate laughing reflex. Most adult laughs hardly activate the pleasure system at all. Laughing should be intensely pleasurable and highly beneficial for your health. This entry will help you make this a reality.

Baby’s laughs are healthy and natural. Infants don’t stifle their laughs. To relearn to laugh genuinely it is helpful to watch infants and toddlers laughing. Please take some time, and search for videos of “babies laughing” on the internet and mimic them. The video below is an excellent example. Pay attention to how the baby laughs at 22 seconds into the video. This is how you want to laugh, but before you can, you need to practice emulating it.

A hearty and progressive emptying of the lungs applies a significant load to the diaphragm and the muscles of the chest wall triggering the endorphin system (Dunbar, 2017). After years of stifling laughter we have forgotten how to laugh in a genuine way that produces this response. The role of the diaphragm in laughter has been weakened so much that laughter no longer recruits the endorphin response and is draining rather than exhilarating.

The respiratory diaphragm is the main muscle responsible for natural laughter. Fake and nervous laughter comes from the throat and often results in increasing tension rather that relieving it. By training yourself to laugh through deep contractions of the diaphragm and abdominals you can rebuild an authentic laugh. These muscles should reach exhaustion and start to fail during a good laugh. If your diaphragm and abdominals start to burn like they did when you were a child, you know that you are doing it right. The next exercise will show you exactly how to retrain your diaphragm to cooperate in the laugh.

Composed Kindness #3: Diaphragmatic Laughing

Practice laughing while exhaling completely. This is an uninterrupted emptying of the lungs with no intervening inhalations. Inhale completely only after you laugh/exhale completely. Try to make a long series of laughing sounds punctuated by vocal (glottal) closure. The brief closing of the vocal tract against the exhalation allows pressure to build and makes the laugh sound like a series of rapid-fire punches. Practice this as an exercise, and attempt to make the laugh last for at least 5 seconds, but shoot for 10 to 20 seconds. Laugh all the way to the bottom of your range of exhalation. Complete 10 to 20 such laughs a day. Try the following variations:

1)      Focus on and coordinate the laughs so that they proceed at a smooth and steady rate.

2)      Notice inadvertent irregularities in timing, and the tendency to gulp, choke or falter and iron these out.

3)      Cause the punctuated exhalations to roll out as fast as possible while maintaining a fixed rythm. After speeding them up, try slowing them down.

4)      Do this using your voice in different ranges, but focus on using a deep voice to create a deep laugh.

5)      Explore your preferred ways of laughing (melody, inflection, and timing) and while doing so, modulate each.

6)      Laugh authoritatively, compellingly, boldly, forcefully, mightily.

7)      Employ different melodies and model other people’s laughs.

8)      Watch videos of babies laughing and simulate their laughs.

9)      Try laughing while exhaling completely until it turns into a wheeze, and you feel you don’t have a cubic centimeter of air left in your lungs. Ensure that the laughing pattern remains coordinated even at the bottom of your exhalation. This will greatly strengthen the muscles involved.

10)  Don't raise your shoulders when you laugh, and focus on keeping them pushed toward the floor. Try to induce paroxysms of laughter without raising the eyebrows, squinting, sneering or tensing any other muscles.

11)  Try to do this with a relaxed face, this will make it so that you can laugh heartily without intense facial constriction.

Because the muscles are strained, stagnant and uncoordinated, at first this will sound like the laugh of an insane villain, but with practice it will become hearty. It is important to do this exercise loudly and unhesitatingly so make sure that you are not worried that others will hear you. Try it in a closet, or in the car.

It will be uncomfortable at first. Your entire thorax will feel sore. Your chest should ache during and after the exercise. The muscles you engage may be so weak that they may feel susceptible to damage. If so take it easy the first few days and build up to doing it vigorously. Consider it a much needed workout. I believe that this exercise is a powerful complement to diaphragmatic breathing exercises and will allow you to reach muscles that you otherwise couldn’t.

It will make you feel weary. This is why I recommend doing it a few minutes before bedtime. After only one week the ache will disappear, and you will be able to push harder, and will be more adept at coordinating the pulses of laughter. After a few weeks you will be good at it, and you will find yourself laughing more often.

This exercise transformed my laugh from a perfunctory courtesy laugh to something enjoyable. Now I laugh spontaneously, heartily and much more frequently. I find laughing tremendously gratifying, and things that were barely amusing to me before are now hilarious.

I believe that laughing evolved to help humans let off steam. We brace our breathing musculature during stress and a real laugh probably helped us attain a full-range, hard contraction of the diaphragm. This contraction relieves the diaphragm of the tension caused by shallow breathing. It may be an evolved exercise that rewarded instances of camaraderie and social bonding by creating a naturally rehabilitating contraction of muscles throughout the thorax. The more you rehab it, the more you increase its potential for providing you with endorphins.