[manv1]

1974 was a long time ago. 32 bits was a big number. The 8080 had 8 bit words and ran at 2Mhz.

For people today, it's hard to understand how expensive everything was back then. 1K of RAM in 1974 cost about $307 dollars. Yeah, you're not going to be putting that into your router. So those extra bits have a super-high hard dollar cost.

We're lucky he didn't go to 16 bits.

[COGlory]

Is that $307 1974 dollars, or $307 today dollars?

[mannyv]

I believe it's 307 in today's dollar (inflation adjusted)