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Subject: Re: Getting pretty jaded aren't we?

Author: David Rasmussen

Date: 01:01:41 12/11/00

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On December 11, 2000 at 02:35:23, Timothy J. Frohlick wrote:

>Dave,
>
>There are physical laws that can not be violated.  Right now we have teraflop
>"big iron" computers. I am not sure though that we can keep up the pace of
>doubling that we have been seeing.
>
>I remember when we had 6502 processors and I told Steve Schwartz about plans for
>a 25 Mhz processor and he could not believe it.  Now it seems like we expect the
>pace of technology to accelerate.
>
>I am in agreement with Bill Gates and I do not put much importance in PCs or
>computers in general.  They will not solve our problems of overpopulation, lack
>of health resources or endless wars.
>
>Tim Frohlick

I agree with that, and I don't see what my comment had to do with that. I was
merely commenting on the outlook of technology as compared with our
expectations. I expect this development to continue, although I understand it
will require breakthroughs. We can't push the electronic transistorbased
processor infinitely. But recently, a danish company have had great success
controlling light in a way that could be used in a computer processor, and the
plan is indeed to make a processor with this technology. The electronic
processor technology is from ~1960, and still it's been able to evolve to
heights people didn't imagine possible. When the next great breakthrough comes
(maybe fotonprocessors), I believe there will be as much room for improvement
and research as in the electronic case.

But who knows.



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