Awhile back I was in a discussion with a forum member about gyros, and I remember saying the old gyros used on US Navy vessels were the size of rooms (I think I was conservative in my description). Considering a gyro now takes up less than .5" sqr, We can really see how times have changed.
Surprisingly, technology is slow coming to US vessels, the photo's below were from 1917, the ships of the 70's and 80's had not changed much. I hope they have now, however...
Old ship gyro photo can be seen in this link.
**broken link removed**