Storage Cost Calculation

[Skippy]

Abohfu venant zinkeng <vicezik <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hard drives have been the secondary storage of choice on computers for
many years. They have improved in speed, in capacity, and in cost for over
50 years. It's interesting to look at how the prices have dropped, or,
conversely, how much storage your money will buy now as compared to many
years ago. This improvement is an example of Moore's Law
> This site was written by a person (in 2009) who had considered this
amazing trend. He collected a lot of data about hard drive capacity and
price. The formula he extrapolated by using the data he found iscost per
gigabyte = 10-0.2502(year-1980) + 6.304where year is the year for which the
extrapolated cost was desired. This formula is based on data from 1980 to
2010.Your program should develop a table of costs, based on the user's
inputs of the starting and ending years and the formula. The table should
produce columns as seen below, The column Year is the year, starting at the
point the user says to start at, and going to the ending year, stopping
there. The size of the step in the table is also specified by the user. The
user inputs are all integers. Your program can assume that. NOTE: The
"ending year, stopping there" phrase is a bit ambiguous. If you want to use
the ending year as the stop value in a range function, that is fine. If you
want to add one to the ending year and use that as the stop value, that is
also ok. In the tables below,  end year plus one was used. Tab characters
can be used.
> Sample Run:Big Blue Hard Drive Storage Cost
> 
> Enter the starting year: 1992
> Enter the ending year: 2015
> What step size for the table? 4
> 
>         Hard Drive Storage Costs Table
> 
> Start Year = 1992
> End Year = 2015
> 
>    Year           Cost Per Gigabyte ($)
> 
>    1992                  2002.627
>    1996                  199.894
>    2000                  19.953
>    2004                  1.992
>    2008                  0.199
>    2012                  0.02
> Another Run:Big Blue Hard Drive Storage Cost
> 
> Enter the starting year: 1998
> Enter the ending year: 2010
> What step size for the table? 2
> 
>         Hard Drive Storage Costs Table
> 
> Start Year = 1998
> End Year = 2010
> 
>    Year           Cost Per Gigabyte ($)
> 
>    1998                  63.154
>    2000                  19.953
>    2002                  6.304
>    2004                  1.992
>    2006                  0.629
>    2008                  0.199
>    2010                  0.063
> QUESTION
> Could someone help me with a design and a python program to implement that
design to solve the above problem?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> <div><div dir="ltr">
> <ul>
> <li>
> <p>Hard drives have been the secondary storage of choice on computers for
many years. They have improved in speed, in capacity, and in cost for over
50 years. It's interesting to look at how the prices have dropped, or,
conversely, how much storage your money will buy now as compared to many
years ago. This improvement is an example of <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law">Moore's Law</a></p>
> <p><a href="http://www.mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte">This site</a> was
written by a person (in 2009) who had considered this amazing trend. He
collected a lot of data about hard drive capacity and price. The formula he
extrapolated by using the data he found is</p>cost per gigabyte =
10-0.2502(year-1980) + 6.304<br>where year is the year for which
the extrapolated cost was desired. This formula is based on data from 1980
to 2010.<p>Your program should develop a table of costs, based on the user's
inputs of the starting and ending years and the formula. The table should
produce columns as seen below, The column Year is the year, starting at the
point the user says to start at, and going to the ending year, stopping
there. The size of the step in the table is also specified by the user. The
user inputs are all integers. Your program can assume
that. NOTE: The "ending year, stopping there" phrase is a bit
ambiguous. If you want to use the ending year as the stop value in a range
function, that is fine. If you want to add one to the ending year and use
that as the stop value, that is also ok. In the tables below,  end
year plus one was used. Tab characters can be used.</p>
> <p>Sample Run:</p>Big Blue Hard Drive Storage Cost
> 
> Enter the starting year: 1992
> Enter the ending year: 2015
> What step size for the table? 4
> 
>         Hard Drive Storage Costs Table
> 
> Start Year = 1992
> End Year = 2015
> 
>    Year           Cost Per Gigabyte ($)
> 
>    1992                  2002.627
>    1996                  199.894
>    2000                  19.953
>    2004                  1.992
>    2008                  0.199
>    2012                  0.02
> <p>Another Run:</p>Big Blue Hard Drive Storage Cost
> 
> Enter the starting year: 1998
> Enter the ending year: 2010
> What step size for the table? 2
> 
>         Hard Drive Storage Costs Table
> 
> Start Year = 1998
> End Year = 2010
> 
>    Year           Cost Per Gigabyte ($)
> 
>    1998                  63.154
>    2000                  19.953
>    2002                  6.304
>    2004                  1.992
>    2006                  0.629
>    2008                  0.199
>    2010                  0.063</li>
> <li>QUESTION</li>
> <li>Could someone help me with a design and a python program to implement
that design to solve the above problem?</li>
> </ul>
> <p></p>
> </div></div>
> 

I can help! This is the exactly the same problem that was assigned as the
first project in CS115 at the University of Kentucky. If you happen to live
anywhere near UK, you can stop by the TA office hours and give you all the
help you need. I know the instructors and most of the TA's personally and I
am sure any of them will be pleased to help you. To get you started the
first thing you have to do is output the report heading to the screen.