Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!concave!buyse
From: buyse@concave.uucp (Russell C. Buyse)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Is anyone here interested in the "Future of Apple //?"
Summary: Parallel processing is not the answer
Message-ID: <788@convex.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jan 89 02:02:25 GMT
References: <5678@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <1209@umbio.MIAMI.EDU> <9323@smoke.BRL.MIL> <5747@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Sender: news@convex.UUCP
Reply-To: buyse@concave.UUCP (Russell C. Buyse)
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx.
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Christopher Hassell writes:
>Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn> writes:
>
>#It may come as a surprise to people who haven't had experience using
>#parallel processing, but it is hard to exploit multiple concurrent
>#processors in a reliable, controlled manner.  For a handful of CPUs,
>#probably the best way to use them is in support of a mutiprocessing
>#environment such as UNIX.
>
>That school of thought has TOO much "common knowledge" for my tastes, sorry.
>Very coarse grained parallelism is a perfect application for micros, I
>believe.

I think that you are tossing away the issues of multi-processing
too quickly.  Devising architectures, system software, and development
tools is a much more complex task when you throw parallelism into the
formula (perhaps a reference to comp.parallel is in order?).  If
parallelism had so many built-in advantages with micros, there would be a
good deal more of them available that do it.

Parallelism is not required for the next Apple II.  What is required is
much faster scalar execution and enhanced graphics capabilities.  These
are both well-known quantities that can be produced by Apple Computer.

The best way that multiple processors might be utilized would be as it is
being done in many micros-- by using processors for individual functions,
such as for the keyboard, etc, in order to free the CPU for other tasks.

-russ.

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