On 10-aug-08, at 17:24, Don Dailey wrote:
Of course there is also the possibility of some exciting new hardware
breakthrough around the corner that doesn't just extend Moore's
law, but
blows it out of the water.
Of course there's that possibility. But I'm actually wondering if we
wouldn't rather be seeing the opposite. Moore's law seems to have
stalled for a few years, only to gain traction again with multiple
core designs. But unlike previous advances in computing power,
multiple processing is not as easily available to all software alike.
People are already asking me (and themselves) what I need an 8-core
computer for. Unless we also see some good progress in software
development, 99% of people will have no use for a 1,000 CPU computer,
either privately or professionally. Game developers already struggle
to use the Playstation's cell architecture to its full potential. If
that remains the case then the type of super-computers that MoGo ran
on will stay in the domain of extreme scientific research isolated to
very special purposes for a long time.
So while I think it's definitely possible that massively parallel
computing can still progress at a fast pace, the fact that it will
become dependent on similar progress in the software field makes it a
quite a bit less likely to happen at the same speed as in the
previous decades, IMO. Because in the end it's the needs of the
masses that drives the real progress of computing speed.
This is all in the realm of speculation of course, and I'd just as
happily be proven wrong on this.
Mark
_______________________________________________
computer-go mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
