Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!philapd!ssp1!roelof
From: roelof@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl (R. Vuurboom)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Fed up with MIPS
Summary: Industry analogies
Message-ID: <318@ssp1.idca.tds.philips.nl>
Date: 20 Oct 89 10:29:56 GMT
References: <76700077@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Philips Telecommunication and Data Systems, The Netherlands
Lines: 52

In article <76700077@p.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>About being "fed up with MIPS"
>
>But most office clerical work needs no more than an XT 8088 machine
>and WordPerfect.  They don't need color, SPICE, or a large database.
>Let's hope these clericals are doomed, or the PC industry will die as
>they flourish.
>
The PC industry today (and that of a large part of the computer industry
also) has to my mind a strong analogy with that of the automobile industry
in the fifties where increased engine performance was a dominating 
technological driving force or to go back even further to bridge building
before the turn of the century when tensile strength (of the steel alloys)
also had a dominating effect on bridge design.

There are two points to note about this:

1. In general in any particular engineering discipline one particular
   attribute dominates development only for so long after a while other
   attributes become dominant.

2. The search for improvement in that particular attribute will continue
   but will no longer be leading in that discipline. Racing cars today
   no longer represent the forefront of passenger car technology but have
   become a separate technology. Tensile strength research is still important
   but no longer in relation to bridge building. 
   
If history repeats itself (and its up to you to decide if it does or does'nt)
then I think one can make the following predictions:

1. A point will come when higher cpu performance (in the traditional "more
   mips" sense) will no longer be the dominating trend in computer design.

2. Higher performant computers (in the traditional sense of "more mips") will
   always be built but at a point in time (the same point as above ? :-)
   they will no longer represent the forefront of "normal" computer
   technology but will have become a separate species (the supercomputer of
   today will not be the laptop of tomorrow...:-).

Theres another analogy with the automobile industry and thats the rate
at which new models were introduced...in the seventies the rate of
model introduction was reduced (to me the sign of a mature technology).
This (I assume) will also occur in the computer industry at a "certain
point in time".


-- 
Artificial Intelligence: 
When computers start selling stocks because its Friday the 13th....
Roelof Vuurboom  SSP/V3   Philips TDS Apeldoorn, The Netherlands   +31 55 432226
domain: roelof@idca.tds.philips.nl             uucp:  ...!mcvax!philapd!roelof