Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a186
From: Harvey_Taylor@mindlink.bc.ca (Harvey Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: How many MIPS do we need?
Message-ID: <5502@mindlink.bc.ca>
Date: 15 Apr 91 00:56:00 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 43

In <y829Z1w164w@ozonebbs.UUCP>, vsolanoy@ozonebbs.UUCP (Victor Solanoy) writes:
|
|griffin@frith.egr.msu.edu (Danny Griffin) writes:
|
|>>In article <2wBuZ3w164w@ozonebbs.UUCP> vsolanoy@ozonebbs.UUCP (Victor Solano
|>>
|>> Personally, the home market doesn't need anything like a 14 mip 68040, a
|>> SPARC-2, or an RS-6000...  most businesses probably don't need it either.
|>
|> Why not?!
|>  [...]
|
| You seem to have missed the point...  there are people who use computers,
| and those that just use computers....

    For that matter, they could probably do it by pencil, paper & slide rule.
 Your statement hangs by the criteria of need. I am reminded of Dylan's line
 "She knows what you need, but I know what you want." I would like a massively
 parallel optical computer with a neural interface, please. [Of course, if
 CBM makes it, it will just be a games machine.]

    On the other claw, don't overestimate present hardware.

 "While today's digital hardware is extremely impressive, it is clear
 that the human retina's real time performance goes unchallenged.
 Actually to simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of
 even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution
 of about 500 simultaneous nonlinear differential equations 100 times
 and would take at least several minutes of time on a Cray supercomputer.
 Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting
 with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of 100 years of
 Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times each
 second." - John K. Stevens
 Byte, Page 287, April 1985, Reverse Engineering the Brain

    -het

 "This is not the world. This is a sophisticated AI simulation of a
  bunch of nerds running around and complaining at each other." -D.Zerkle

 Harvey Taylor      Meta Media Productions
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