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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Processing
Message-ID: <2105@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Apr-87 19:32:23 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.2105
Posted: Tue Apr 14 19:32:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Apr-87 03:29:31 EST
References: <505@sw1e.UUCP> <110@hippo.UUCP> <6123@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <261@winchester.mips.UUCP> <6208@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 25

In article <6208@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) writes:
... that with a hypothesized 50 to 1000 x speed improvement, we may have
more processing power than we know what to do with.

I think he's wrong.  Consider what happens when you add natural language and
voice recognition to the user interface of every program.  When you are
supporting a 10,000 by 10,000 pixel screen in graphics mode.  When large
amounts of real-world knowledge are to be built in to a program to enable
intelligent behavior.

Now, these things require varying degrees of software development; but it
seems likely to me that each will also use up immense amounts of computing
power.  No one has yet tried to develop such things for market, because the
hardware required to support them is not available yet.  (Or if they *have*
tried, they have failed because ...)

This is relevant to the "who needs giga-bytes of memory?" controversy, too.
These kinds of applications will require huge data storage, too.  This is a
general phenomenon; for a given level of functionality, there is a tradeoff
between speed and space, but enhanced functionality requires more speed *and*
more memory.

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108