Re: tlug: Karl-Max has cool dreams [was: dual-pentium processors]

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Manu" == Manuel M T Chakravarty <chak@example.com> writes:

    Manu> "Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com> wrote,
    >> >>>>> "Karl-Max" == Karl-Max Wagner <karlmax@example.com>
    >> writes:
    >> 
    Karl-Max> By 2020 your computer will house a 64 paralell processor
    Karl-Max> chip
    >> The other stuff is one-dimensional extrapolation as far as I
    >> can see, and (possibly) conservative.  Why do you think this
    >> will take so long, and why do you think it will be as few as
    >> 64?

    Manu> The question is, will it help you much?

Dunno.  I'd bet on it, though.

    Manu> There are not many people who can write a program that
    Manu> scales to 64 processors, and if you can, it is an aweful lot
    Manu> of work.

Who needs to?  `M-! ps ax | wc' ==> `54   320   2233'

I've got 54 processes running, and several of them (X server,
Netscrap, XEmacs) could very usefully be multi-threaded.  Processor
per thread!  Wasteful?  Sure---but I know lots of people who only use
half their RAM and half their hard drive.  If multiple processors
could be packed as cheaply as bytes are today (Think Big!), there
would be no issue about scheduling, interrupts, etc---just use any
free processor.

(Yes, that's overly simplistic; but the overhead would be much lower
than multi-tasking.  Maybe; I haven't thought about resource locking.)

Want to upgrade your login server from 64 to 128 lines?  Call NTT and 
plug in another chip on the motherboard....

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