Re: RC Transmission Lines (Wafer-Scale)

Robert Baer wrote:
Phil Hobbs wrote:

Forgive me for a rather nasty question.
What is this phoney push for more junk on a piece of silicon to support what used to be relatively simple applications?

Now, Robert, be nice. ;)

For one thing, IBM (where I work) doesn't even make PCs anymore.

What was wrong with KISS?
In a personal computer, one does not need 2^10 core CPUs, or even dual core; any CPU speed over 1Ghz is wasted, and for 99+% uses Win98Se is more than good enough.

Depends on your problem set. I have a 14-processor Opteron cluster in my lab, used only by me, for electromagnetic simulation and device design. I put it together for a song (about $12 altogether), but some of the problems I use it for can't be solved on a machine with less than 30 GB of RAM. Google probably isn't going to try to run on a single uniprocessor box of any speed whatsoever.


Now, if one gets into graphics (read: games, design PCBs or other complex artwork), then more speed becomes useful and Win2K becomes a better choice.
Oh, you say, we "need" dual (or quad) core for graphics.
What the hell is that large graphics chip on the fancy video card for? Boat anchor?
In fact, what good was the MMX instruction set for, since the sound card already supported those functions.
On a cell phone guess what - its purpose is to send and receive calls, period.
Want to do something else like portable music - players have been around for over 10 years that do that; they just get smaller and store more.
Etc etc and etc (courtesy of Yul Brynner in the King and I).

I'm glad you're happy with what you have. I use computers of varying ages too...my office machines are 4 and 10 years old respectively, and they're both dual-processor SMPs, because I push them pretty hard sometimes. I've been writing multithreaded code since OS/2 2.0 came out in 1992. I also like using old apps--for instance, Wordperfect 5.1+ for DOS *flies* on a modern machine.

On the other hand, there are enough customers for the fastest machines (who know very well what they need) to keep me in beer and skittles, anyway. I like doing things that are useful and fun. Why do you do what you do?

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

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