I remember the early days of the HP35. When they first came out in the early
70s, they cost several hundred dollars and could just do a few engineering
calculations, etc. Twenty years later we could do the same stuff with something
that would fit in your pocket and cost less than $20. Ain't science
wonderful?!> Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:54:06 -0600> From: wo...@justfamily.org>
To: dlocklea...@gmail.com> CC: texascavers@texascavers.com> Subject: Re:
[Texascavers] OT - recent computer news - supercomputers> > 10 to 15 years ago,
a "supercomputer" was much slower than our current> computers, so saying that
we will have supercomputers in dorm rooms in> 10 years is kind of misleading.
We have them in our houses today,> even our cell phones are more powerful than
some of the earlier> supercomputers.> > My quad core mac has more power than
supercomputers built 7 years ago,> so its all a relative point.> > It will be
amazing how well computers scale in the next 10 years. The> megahertz/gigahertz
race is basically over, they aren't making them> faster in that aspect, they
are adding more core's, parallel> processing and upping the bus speeds that the
cpu's communicate with> the rest of the computer (memory, video, hard drive,
peripherals).> > Unless you are doing very processor intensive things, more
than a> dual-core is a waste. Most modern applications don't even use more>
than 1 core, video/audio encoding or computational research is about> the only
thing that you can do to tax your home computers processor.> I say a dual-core,
because of the modern Windows O/S, it's handy to> have one core for it, and the
2nd core for your application. More> than 2 are really wasted unless you are
utilizing it for a specific> reason. Of course, this is all my opinion and
observations :)> > Charles> > On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 11:42 AM, David
<dlocklea...@gmail.com> wrote:> > I am posting this off-topic here because
nearly everybody on Cavetex> > uses computers,> > and a few Cavetex posters are
computer enthusiast.> >> > ( please reply by subscribing to:
ot-subscr...@texascavers.com )> >> >> > Supercomputers are back in the news
again.> >> >
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9120741&source=rss_news>
>> > IBM's new RoadRunner claims to be the fastest, by breaking> > the
petaflop barrier, but Cray is already claiming they beat that.> >> > Meanwhile,
wealthy computer users can purchase their very> > own supercomputer.> >> >
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2334950,00.asp> >> > While the
starting price is $ 10,000, there are computers out there> > now in the $ 5,000
range that claim to be able to challenge supercomputers,> > on certain task.>
>> > It would seem probable that college students will have supercomputers> >
in the dorm rooms in 10 years, well at least grad students and computer> >
science majors.> >> > I bet there is a caver out there with the Apple 8 core
computer.> >> > http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html> >> > And if that
isn't fast enough for you, Apple plans to make it faster next year:> >> >
http://www.macblogz.com/2008/11/13/intel-leaks-point-to-mac-pro-updates-early-next-year/>
>> >> > David Locklear> > Fort Bend County Armchair Cavers Association (
FBCACA )> >> >> > Ref:> >> >
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/09/16/cray-microsoft-team-up-to-sell-25k-windows-supercomputer-will-it-blue-screen/>
>> > http://www.xconomy.com/?attachment_id=4892> >> >
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Colfax-International-Launches-Tesla-Personal/story.aspx?guid=%7BC47183E9-3D9C-45EC-86C0-34AF72A0D011%7D>
>> >
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122697768258136325.html?mod=googlenews_wsj> >>
> http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/546517/> >> >
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