Computing at ESO through the ages

This image shows the Austrian astronomer Rudi Albrecht in the Data Centre at ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany, which archives and distributes data from ESO’s telescopes. He is in front of a rack containing a system with 40 processor cores, 138 terabytes of storage capacity and 83 gigabytes of RAM — over 5 million times more than the machine used by him back in 1974! Even the tablet computer he is holding far outperforms the older machine, and provides a modern alternative to pencil and paper.