Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!dg!Publius
From: Publius@dg.dg.com (Publius)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: The Sixth Generation
Message-ID: <429@dg.dg.com>
Date: 4 May 90 01:15:15 GMT
References: <76700193@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <422@dg.dg.com> <1990May3.153742.9750@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: publius@dg-pag.webo.dg.com (Publius)
Organization: Data General, Westboro, MA.
Lines: 26

In article <1990May3.153742.9750@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>More likely, actually, just faster silicon.  Silicon is really pretty
>good stuff, and it's getting more development money than all its would-be
>competitors put together.


History tells us that it is always the case that much more money is poured
into mature technologies and industries than the emerging ones.  Three
decades ago, the development money for semiconductor was probability less
than a tiny fraction of the development money for steel, and U. S. Steel,
not IBM, was the bluest among blue chips.

>The invisible hand of Adam Smith right now is full of Intel x86 machines,
>and I *refuse* to believe that those are the world's best computer
>architecture!

To say this is to ignore the segmentation of the market.  It is not that
segment of the market we are talking about here, or we might as well say
that the world is also full of digital watches.  Ware talking about the
high end, high performance segment of the market.

-- 
Disclaimer: I speak (and write) only for myself, not my employer.

Publius     "Old federalists never die, they simply change their names."
publius@dg-pag.webo.dg.com