Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!xylogics!world!bzs
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: VLIW Architecture - References, oth
Message-ID: <1989Oct17.192955.29370@world.std.com>
Date: 17 Oct 89 19:29:55 GMT
References: <771301127@8909291517.AA00260@maxwell.ece.c> <130800001@peg> <2109@convex.UUCP>
Organization: The World
Lines: 36


The correct way to state the "do we need more MIPS?" argument is
something like this:

1. There exists a percentage of users who, no matter how fast
computers become in the foreseeable future, will need even more speed.

2. There are two factors making the percentage smaller over time, the
steady and rapid increase in office and other clerical uses of
computers and the increase in speed we are seeing (that is, some users
are dropping out of the hunger category simply because they have
become sated for the time being.)

3. A good test of whether or not someone is in the first category or
not is to ask the question: "Given $X for your computing needs, and no
more, for the next year what would you spend it on?" If they say CPU
then they're probably in the first category. If they say a faster CPU
would be nice but I guess right now I'd have to buy (some neat
applications software, more disk, printer, whatever) then they're
probably not in the first category, just like to think they are.

Many more people are in the "just like to think they are" category
than most of us are led to believe. They say that CPUs must get faster
but, instead of buying faster CPUs already available, they buy things
like nifty laser printers or graphics packages for the same dollars.

Granted the shrinking percentage of power-hungry users still control
hefty dollars and that's what keeps that section of the industry
humming but don't discount the trends. There may well be a point
beyond which even folks like DOD can't keep the sheer race for MIPS
viable. I/O bandwidth is probably another competing frontier.
-- 
	-Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade
1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202