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From: kent@xanth.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Processing
Message-ID: <848@xanth.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 18-Apr-87 03:13:00 EST
Article-I.D.: xanth.848
Posted: Sat Apr 18 03:13:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 00:34:32 EST
References: <505@sw1e.UUCP> <110@hippo.UUCP> <6123@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Distribution: world
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 50
Keywords: Graphics, realism, animation, complexity, fractals, text searches
Summary: I can eat megaflops and MIPS faster than you can cook them up!

Barry,
	I think a bit more imagination is in order in this discussion.
	If the processing speed is provided cheap enough, it is easy to
	envision home uses for the Teraflop micro with the Terabyte memory
	chip.  ;-)  Examples which come to mind immediately:
	
	Flying your home computer in real time through the Mandelbrot set,
	recomputing at the 60 Hz frame rate, 1280 by 1024 by 24 bits display
	time, 2048 iterations deep.
	
	Robot wars with real time ray traced graphics for the kiddies, same
	resolution (you didn't think I was going to buy two of those things
	at a week's pay apiece, did you! ;-).
	
	Landscape design 101, home instrucion course, with fractal rocks,
	texture mapped fence boards, rule grown trees and shrubs, architectural
	database buildings, all ray traced in real time as the user moves stuff
	about in search of a passing grade.
	
	Stock investment with a quick AI rule based search of all the stocks on
	all the markets, based on daily highs and lows for each for the last
	five years, looking for a place to put the family nest egg until
	tomorrow night.
	
	A full inverted text database search of all the periodicals published
	in all areas of science this century, for a high school "civics of
	science" project.
	
	Real time scanning all 2000 available TV channels, looking for a show
	with redeeming social value, using another AI program with a built in
	optimistic streak.  ;-)

	Home weather prediction using data from the new 1 km worldwide grid.

	And the list goes on.  The point being that work expands to consume
	the resources available for it; always has, always will.  ;-)
Kent.

--
The Contradictor	Member HUP (Happily Unemployed Programmers)    // Also
								      // A
Back at ODU to learn how to program better (after 25 years!)	  \\ // Happy
								   \// Amigan!
UUCP  :  kent@xanth.UUCP   or    ...{sun,cbosgd,harvard}!xanth!kent
CSNET :  kent@odu.csnet    ARPA  :  kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu
Voice :  (804) 587-7760    USnail:  P.O. Box 1559, Norfolk, Va 23501-1559

Copyright 1987 Kent Paul Dolan.			How about if we keep the human
All Rights Reserved.  Author grants free	race around long enough to see
retransmission rights, recursively only.	a bit more of the universe?