Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!cernvax!hjm
From: hjm@cernvax.UUCP (Hubert Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: Re: Grain-y-ness
Message-ID: <1116@cernvax.UUCP>
Date: 12 Oct 89 11:13:20 GMT
References: <00002D20_00242050.0092C1372373A7E0$1_5@UK.AC.STAFPOL.CR83> <11873@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: hjm@cernvax.UUCP (Hubert Matthews)
Organization: CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 19

In article <11873@watcgl.waterloo.edu> lindsay@watnext.waterloo.edu (Lindsay Patten) writes:
>CDRIW@cr83.staffordshire-polytechnic.ac.uk:
>> Surely the point is to keep the memory as busy as possible? 
>
>Why?  I would think that it would be do get as much done as possible. No?

Since the major cost in modern computers is memory, then this is not
an unreasonable viewpoint.  CPUs are cheap in comparison to memory.
Perhaps you might phrase your answer better as: "I would think that it
would be better to get as much done as possible for a given cost".
You can always throw more hardware at a problem and make it go faster,
but it may not be cost-effective.

In short, engineering is full of trade-offs.  Speed v. cost is just
one of the obvious ones.
-- 
Hubert Matthews      ...helping make the world a quote-free zone...

hjm@cernvax.cern.ch   hjm@vxomeg.decnet.cern.ch    ...!mcvax!cernvax!hjm