So, if I'm reading the quote correctly, it suggests that computing in one thirty year period underwent an increase in the ratio of performance to price of 10^6, or 1,000,000. That sure is impressive! I don't know how for sure to measure that in other technologies, but here are some milestones:

• 6th-4th millennium B.C.E. - Writing

• Book binding - ca. 5th century

• Moveable-type printing press - 11th century C.E. in China, 15th century in the West

• Telegraph - Morse patented his telegraph in 1837

• Bell patented his telephone in 1876

• Edison invented the phonograph in 1877

• Marconi got his patent on the radio in 1896

• The first computers date to WWII or so, yes?

• First integrated circuit - 1959

• 1964 - first Xerox telefax machine (with various forerunners throughout the early 20th century)

• Late 1960s and early 1970s - many of the technologies that would lead to the Internet

I'm sure we could fill in more - personal computers, cellular phones, smart phones, America Online, etc. The overall picture is one of accelerating communications technologies from the nineteenth century, in particular after Morse developed a practical telegraph in the middle of the nineteenth century. I'm no economist or business guy, so I don't know how you calculate the performance-price ratio for any particular technology at any particular time. It strikes me that computers are somewhat unique in that the processing power of microchips is measured on a standardized scale. I would be interested to see if someone has done something similar on, say, telegraph lines, perhaps by measuring how often a relay station was necessary to prevent performance degradation. But I dunno.