Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!a.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Joseph.Bates From: Joseph.Bates@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Dangers of Nanotech Message-ID: <8905160500.AA05900@athos.rutgers.edu> Date: 14 May 89 16:02:32 GMT References: Sender: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 21 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu JoSH recently mentioned that in 10 to 20 years we will see an improvment of 1000 to 1 million in computing technology. While this is the "standard" figure, it seems to me that a more accurate rate is 10 to 100 (say, 30) each decade. Memory has improved a little faster, crunching a little slower. Examples. In 1965 the Linc, a high end "personal workstation" of the time, had 3K bytes and an 8us cycle time. Today a RISC has about 10Mb and 40ns. This is x3000 and x200, or about x30 and x10 per decade. One gets similar numbers with home computers, and smaller numbers comparing a 360/91 and a Cray 3. So perhaps O(30) per decade is a better choice for back of the envelope calculations. Of course, this has no impact whatsoever on the point of JoSH's note. Joe [I can defend the 1000 with examples, but, as you say, it's not the point. The 1000 figure is a quote from CMU's own Raj Reddy. --JoSH]