The impact of computers on graphic design?

Question

When did computers begin to impact graphic design? When were they first powerful enough and cheap enough to be of any use?

How powerful were they back then compared to what we have now? (CPU speed relative to today's processors, RAM, HDD space)

Thanks!

Answer 1

Computers began affecting the graphic design industry when 3D images and media began getting rendered...

Well, maybe not, but I'd say around the early 90's to your question.

Since then, Moore's Law has held remarkably well. The amount of transistors on a chip and the processing power has doubled every 18 months.

Which means, an average computer today is few thousand times more powerful than a computer back then.

RAM has grown from low megabytes to low gigabytes, a factor of a couple hundred up to a thousand.

HDD space has likewise, by a factor of a thousand, maybe slightly more. We have terabyte drives today.

HDD and RAM speed has increased significantly.

Dedicated graphics cards have become gone mainstream and are extremely powerful.