* "Magic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Fri, 10 Mar 2000
| I didn't say emulate the ASIC, I said devise a system based up it. The
| Windows caluclator is based upon an actual calculator, but it isn't an
| emulation. I have been arguing for a while that the best way to reproduce a
| system is not necessarily be emulation.
The software guts of the Windows calculator are totally unlike those in the
IC of a pocket calculator. They do the same thing, but they go about it in
different ways. There are things that can be done in an ASIC that are just
plain stupid to do the same way in software on a general purpose processor.
Counting on your fingers is really easy for humans. Counting on fingers is
not a good way to write mathematical software.
[...]
| If you go back far enough you'll find the idea of a computer in a chip was
| laughed at. The idea of a computer was itself rediculous until Charles
| Babbage came along.
Actually, it was laughed at well through Babbage's life and death. None of
his engines were ever built.
| My point is that things move on, systems get better and can do more things,
| and so it is not impossible for a computer to do this task.
Tell me where I once stated that a desktop machine five years from now
would be unable to perform ATRAC encoding in real time. I will save you
the trouble: I never did. I said that a desktop machine today cannot
perform ATRAC encoding in real time because it has to do in slow software
what a dedicated DSP can do in a fast ASIC.
--
Rat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> \ Happy Fun Ball contains a liquid core,
Minion of Nathan - Nathan says Hi! \ which, if exposed due to rupture, should
PGP Key: at a key server near you! \ not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word
"unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
