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From: bzs@bu-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Processing
Message-ID: <6741@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Sat, 18-Apr-87 21:30:00 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.6741
Posted: Sat Apr 18 21:30:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 08:26:05 EST
References: <505@sw1e.UUCP> <110@hippo.UUCP> <6123@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
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Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 36
In-reply-to: kent@xanth.UUCP's message of 18 Apr 87 08:13:00 GMT
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.4 of Mon Mar 23 1987 on bu-cs (berkeley-unix)


Kent,

I still claim almost everything in your list of things we -could- be
doing if we only had extremely high performance PCs fall into one of
the following categories:

	1. Relatively trite (calculate the Mandelbrot set in my
	living room in real-time? ok, maybe someone out there is
	hot to do that, but I wouldn't try to build a market on it.)

	2. Not obvious that hardware technology is the lacking
	component (all the AI examples you give, maybe they would
	run on a 10MIPs box just fine? How can you know? Why don't
	we run these applications today on expensive fast iron? Are
	the owners of said iron just not interested.)

	3. Possibly more in the realm of other technologies, although
	in the right ball-park (eg. scanning huge data bases requires
	fast I/O as much if not more than CPU power, large numbers of
	cooperating CPUs might be more useful in such an endeavor
	than single massive CPUs, similar argument for image processing.)
	The problem, of course, is that we don't know how to use multiple
	CPU systems very well, so we go for the iron.

My contention is simply that sheer CPU power has become vastly
over-rated as a cure-all, and people are starting to realize this.

Again, I am speaking for the vast majority of the users of computers,
I fully accept there is a small percentage for whom no iron will be
fast enough in the foreseeable future. I also do not think we have
reached a plateau quite yet, but we are rapidly approaching some point
where further increases (for most users) will be superfluous w/o
significant software and other technolgy advances, maybe not even then.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University