What a difference 30 years makes for image resolution…

It’s more a picture than anything.

Over on Things of Interest, someone overlaid the original Apple Macintosh, which was released in 1984 and shipped with a black-and-white 512 x 342 display. Fast forward 30 years to the release of the iMac with Retina 5K display, which ships with a 5,120 x 2,880 display with support for millions of colours. That’s an increase from 175,000 pixels to more than 14.7 million – an 8,400% increase. 80 of the original Macintosh displays fit within a single Retina 5K display.

The stats are astounding, but to really put things in perspective, take a look at the image below, showing the original Macintosh display overlaid on a promotional image that Apple has been using to showcase the massive size of the new iMac’s display. Click the image to link to the full, relatively massive original image.

That tiny black-and-white rectangle crammed into the bottom-left corner was cutting-edge technology three decades ago.

Something to think about as you go through your Friday.