Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!umich!terminator!merit.edu!rsc
From: rsc@merit.edu (Richard Conto)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Historical architectural advances??
Keywords: Counting on Fingers
Message-ID: <1990Oct18.172601.24943@terminator.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 18 Oct 90 17:26:01 GMT
References: <8052@scolex.sco.COM> <2750@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <8139@scolex.sco.COM> <1808@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>
Sender: usenet@terminator.cc.umich.edu (usenet news)
Reply-To: rsc@merit.edu (Richard Conto)
Organization: U of Michigan, Merit Network
Lines: 21

In article <1808@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> mshute@cs.man.ac.uk (Malcolm Shute) writes:
>In article <8139@scolex.sco.COM> seanf (Sean Fagan) writes:
>>Using your fingers to do addition is an incredible performance/price ratio
>>(since price is 0).
>Just to nit-pick... the price of fingers can't be zero, otherwise we'd each
>be able to order an unlimited number of them (at zero total cost).

It isn't a nit-pick. You need to determine how much fingers cost you, and how
much the time it takes to perform the calculation costs you.  Just think about
hiring a bunch of teenagers away from McDonalds (at minimum wage, because the
working conditions are better...). Suppose a teenager can perform 1 integer
operation in 1 second, and 1 floating point operation in 2 seconds. (Fantasy,
I know...) The price/performance here is ($4.25 /hr)/((1Flop/2seconds)*
(3600seconds/hr)*(1Mflop/1000000Mflop)), or $2361/Mflop.

Even if you can get faster teenagers, that number is still going to be pretty
big. And who knows about accuracy. Now, all of these numbers seem pretty
optomistic to me. And what happens when OSHA comes down on you when all the
teenagers come down with carpal tunnel syndrome?

--- Richard ;-)