Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!styx!ptsfa!ihnp4!alberta!bjorn
From: bjorn@alberta.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Processing (terminology and limits really)
Message-ID: <303@pembina.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Apr-87 22:11:03 EST
Article-I.D.: pembina.303
Posted: Thu Apr 23 22:11:03 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Apr-87 19:35:26 EST
References: <505@sw1e.UUCP> <110@hippo.UUCP> <6123@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <6872@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 106
Summary: Bring me all your cycles

It seems to me like carrying water into an already flooded cellar
to post this reply, but the sentence about axioms is what really
brought the water level to the ground floor.

In article <6872@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>>Undoubtedly you have heard the axiom
>>"Any program will expand to fill all available space."
> 
>Yes, but that is not an axiom, it is a shibboleth. An axiom is
>something you can prove.

Please, please!?!  We've seen enough perversion of perfectly
reasonable CS concepts by the PC people in years gone by (not
to mention re-inventing each and every shape of wheel in
existence), let's not start on mathematics (or general use
English for that matter) already.  An axiom is a given even
though mathematicians do not select them frivolously and
sometimes some pretty astounding results have been proven
equivalent to specific axioms for particular theories
(Axiom of choice == Zorn's lemma!  [there are more
results that are "==" to these] anyone? [wrong group!!]).

> My favorite example is we saw automobiles in the beginning of the
> century go from (max) 10MPH to 30MPH to 100MPH. But after that first
> (ca.) 30 years of development extrapolating the curve became
> ridiculous.

This is a ridiculous example, as you note later on (wonder why
it's your favorite).  The whole point is that there are some
fairly well entrenched physical laws (barriers) to contend with.
This analogy, favored as it may be, is therefore less than useless.
It's not even true, for indeed we have gone beyond x mph autos
long ago with those devices that are commonly referred to as airliners,
bullet trains, etc..

> The cost of building a car and designing a road system
> which would transport the average person at 300MPH became ridiculously
> out of reach.

See above.

> Sure, there's a flaw here in that lots of MIPs won't
> endanger your life (maybe, I could argue that one also, but it's more
> socio-technical) but the point where you cross over beyond
> cost/benefit might exist in a similar fashion. And maybe some day
> we will build 300MPH passenger cars, *maybe*.

The crucial term in the above is "cost/benefit",  I don't think
we have any argument with a one man non-existent market, although
I must say that taking a flight through a Mandelbrot set in real
time is not my fantasy for an ideal Saturday night.

> You'll get into more and more expensive technology to build this
> 1000MIP desktop and there just won't be enough of a market for it.

What we have continually (so far) is a see-saw (sp?) of processor
and memory technology.  Wasn't far back that you didn't need any
tricky or expensive designs to get away with 0 wait state memories
in typical state of the art microprocessor systems, wasn't long
before that when you had to have cache, etc. to keep your processor
busy.  Look's like were stuck with some pretty expensive memory
system designs for the next little while, if we want to squeeze
out every last ounce of performance from a processor that is.

> Your potential customers will say "gee, I dunno, I can't keep my
> 100MIP PC you sold me last year busy, you have any applications to
> justify the cost of this new box?" And the answer may be "no". (don't
> quibble the numbers, insert 50MIPs and 100MIPs in there.)

Have you seen how OS's are being implemented these last few days.
Did you ever hear about dividing the iq of dumbest number of
a committee by the number of people on said committee.  If
recent experience is any indication OS's are going to take
a good slice of whatever cycles are present.  Prime opportunity
for slick OS fellows I'd say.

> All I am saying is, not that we will never, or that no one will ever
> need huge MIPs. I am simply saying that we will probably run out of
> useful applications to justify them IN MOST CASES. If it takes
> 1000MIPs to run an SF robot we probably will have had 1000MIPs for 20
> years before anyone demonstrates the need. Will you still be in business?

Yes and I'm just nagging when I bitch (silently and privately)
about the way some people waste the cycles in their Sun's drawing
frivolous pictures 24 hours a day such that I can only get 80-90 %
cpu out of same Sun's instead of the 10000 % I really want.

> It's really not all that subtle, is it? Or am I just really riling the
> more parochial out there?

No it's not subtle at all.  Give me and thousands of others
all the cycles you have left over (preferably all at once
mind you) and we'll be as flushed as cooked lobsters from our
good fortune.  I have plenty of applications that can use
absolutely any amount of cycles that you give me, and no
they're not necessarily graphics, NLP, seismic or weather [or
other PDE stuff] related.

> Perhaps the problem is that people tend to confuse quantity with
> quality, anyone remember the "cup and a half of flavor" ads?

No, was that on TV by any chance?  No wonder I missed it.


			Bjorn R. Bjornsson
			{ubc-vision,ihnp4,mnetor}!alberta!bjorn