e/Bell's Law of Computer Classes

Information
has gloss	eng: Bells Law of Computer Classes formulated by Gordon Bell in 1972 describes how computer classes form, evolve and may eventually die out. New classes create new applications resulting in new markets and new industries. Bell considers the law to be partially a corollary to Moores Law which states "the number of transistors per chip double every 24 months". Unlike Moores Law, a new computer class is usually based on lower cost components that have fewer transistors or less bits on a magnetic surface, etc. A new class forms about every decade. It also takes up to a decade to understand how the class formed, evolved, and is likely to continue. Once formed, a lower priced class may evolve in performance to take over and disrupt an existing class. This evolution has caused clusters of scalable personal computers with 1 to thousands of computers to span a price and performance range of use from a PC, through mainframes, to become the largest supercomputers of the day. Scalable clusters became a universal class beginning in the mid-1990s; by 2010, clusters of at least one million, independent computers will constitute the worlds largest cluster.
lexicalization	eng: Bell's Law of Computer Classes
instance of	(noun) a short pithy instructive saying apophthegm, aphorism, apothegm