Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!uceng!dmocsny
From: dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: VLIW Architecture - References, oth
Summary: The Need for Power
Message-ID: <2540@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 21 Oct 89 03:22:08 GMT
References: <771301127@8909291517.AA00260@maxwell.ece.c> <130800001@peg> <1989Oct20.234510.955@world.std.com>
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
Lines: 66

In article <1989Oct20.234510.955@world.std.com>, bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
> It's not that [ users ] have no further aspirations, it's that they have no
> further software. And that's not silly.

I'm sorry if the tone of my post sounded excessively hostile. I see now
that I misunderstood your use of the word "need." When I am hungry, but
have neither food nor a dish to put it on, I still need to eat. However,
I guess if I speak of needing a dish, I mislead.

> You can hypothesize all this software which "they" will find useful
> and will require all these extra cycles but it remains just that, a
> hypothesis, an extrapolation of past experience which may or may not
> be valid. I will grant it will be valid in some applications domains
> but in others it may very well not be valid.

The past history of the computer industry has many amusing episodes
beginning with statements like: "Nobody will ever need ... " or "The
maximum worldwide demand for < X > will be at most ... "
Prognosticators have been very good at underestimating the demand for
information processing power. I am understandably skeptical when I
hear similar statements today, especially when I am acutely aware that
my own information needs are far from satisfied (a function of both
inadequate hardware and inadequate software).

However, I agree with your concern about the software lag. The software
complexity necessary to fully exploit powerful computers appears to 
increase in proportion to those machines' power. And yet, as we all
know, while the hardware power increases exponentially, software
complexity increases arithmetically (if at all).

> In fact, they'll scream for more cycles *after* that software shows
> up, not in anticipation of it.

This is true. Both users and experts have a profoundly difficult time
grasping the potential of any new development until it is up and running
before their eyes...or perhaps, before their competitors' eyes...

> If we have to hypothesize non-existant software to soak up the cycles
> we already have, then we have entered a very different realm indeed
> from a very few years ago.

Well, I think that if we look at the size of the existing software
library, we would be hard-pressed to find many computer users who are
in fact using all the software they might benefit from right now.
(Does any individual alive even *comprehend* what all that software
can do?) If the hardware speed enthusiasts want to keep the world safe
for faster hardware, then they are eventually going to have to do
something about not only the gap between hardware and software, but
between software and users.

What? Dunno. But for starters, having computers that are unable to run
major chunks of the existing software library, even inefficiently,
sounds to me like a big, big problem. (However, this is again as much
a problem amenable to new software (emulators, etc.) as it is to new
hardware (e.g., overlapping instruction sets).)

Another possible tactic is for hardware vendors to fund development of
complex, compute-intensive software, and then give it away to users
when they buy hardware. If you can successfully bundle enough software
to insure the box is choked the second it gets installed, and the
software is worth running, then you've got your repeat business right
there. That shouldn't be too hard to do; a few generous grants to the
Free Software Foundation would probably do the trick.

Dan Mocsny
dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu