Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
. . . it's business as usual with most systems running with a stack of bandaids 9 miles high piled on top of the horrible old Intel 8080 architecture. (Can you run an X86-64 in 8 bit mode? I wonder...)
. . . we're stuck with the same old same old massively updated but still hyperugly 8008/8080/8086-series architecture. The waves came, they hit the rocks, and they recoiled. Last I heard the X86 series still had exposed pipes in the FPU -- I mean, really...
This is what S. J. Gould called "drastically suboptimal technology." It is caused by mechanisms similar to those of biological evolution, mainly contingency and incumbency. Basically it means whatever happens to win in the early stages dominates the market for a long time. Winner deals and dealer wins. See chapter 7 of my book, section 2.
When technology is in stasis, whatever started out ahead usually stays ahead. Then a radical change occurs, a new set of winners may emerge. This is why DEC, Data General and the others vanished in the 1980s. That is why I predict that no radically new gasoline engine will emerge before oil becomes so expensive we have to abandon it. There have been radical new gasoline powered designs such as turbines and even fuel cells that extract hydrogen from gasoline. I doubt they will ever supplant the piston-and-cylinder design.
Radical changes come about for various different reasons. Resource depletion is seldom a factor, but sometimes it is. It forced the end of whale oil consumption, and it will probably bring about the end of the oil era. Other energy resources are not likely to run out anytime soon. Most of the time, the new technology wins because it is better or cheaper. Cars were not cheaper than horses in 1920, but they were far better in other ways. Computers displaced manual adding machines and slide rules because they were so much better and cheaper. Improved steamships drove most sailing ships out of business, and then WWI killed off the remaining ones. If cold fusion succeeds it will because it is much better and cheaper than the alternatives, not because we run out of coal, natural gas, uranium, or land suitable for wind or solar. Only oil is likely to run out.
- Jed
