At 10:05 AM -0400 7/3/00, jeradonah wrote:
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/biztech/articles/03spee.html
>
>July 3, 2000
>
> A Break in Moore's Law, But, Hey,
> Who's Counting?
>
> By STEVE LOHR
>
>Ever-faster computers are just in the nature of things. Behind the
>blasi optimism is Moore's Law -- named after Gordon Moore, the
>co-founder of Intel, who observed that the number of transistors
>chip makers could fit on a given piece of silicon doubled every 18
>months.
>
>Yet recently, computer scientists have begun to fret that the end of
>Moore's Law -- and, with it, the march of computing progess -- is in
>sight as the physical limits of minute circuitry loom.
>
>So the I.B.M. announcement last week that it had built the fastest
>supercomputer becomes of interest to more than the computing
>equivalent of drag-racing fans. The $110 million machine, built to
>simulate the testing of nuclear weapons, is three times as powerful
>as the previous record-holder. And the earlier front-runner, also
>from I.B.M., was finished 21 months ago.
>
>In short, there is a break with Moore's Law, at least in this rarefied realm.
...
Nope, no interesting break with Moore's Law (not that Moore's Law is
any kind of actual law, just an observation of past trends).
The IBM machine is an assemblage of many smaller machines, and has
nothing to do with the chips themselves.
I could go on, but you all can see where this is going.
A pity the journalist had to rely on this kind of minor sensationalism.
---Tim May
--
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Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
