On: Mark 1 FORTH Computer

Apart from being a neat project, this is a good demonstration of how far we have come since TTL. Today you can buy a ten pack of 144 forth computers on a single chip (= 1440 CPUs) for USD200 [1]. Each asynchronous CPU has a claimed instruction cycle of ~1.8ns, giving each array of 144 CPUs a peak of 96 billion operations per second with 650mW dissipated.

I don't write this to belittle the Mark 1. I just love the juxtaposition of old and new.

[1] http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/products/index.html

It's a bit of an unfair comparison. The Mark 1 has something like 200 times more RAM per CPU.

That wasn't a joke.