🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan27.024351.17902@news.arc.nasa.gov> lamaster@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster) writes:
>In article <1993Jan26.215541.9957@adobe.com>, zstern@adobe.com (Zalman Stern) writes:
>|> fewer and fewer problems that require that kind of power and it becomes  
>|> harder and harder to make the machine more powerful. Cheaper is a problem  
>|> because the margins go down and a lot of a mainframe's costs are not  
>|> hardware oriented. (I.e. service, paying for the space and other central  
>|> facilities required.)
>
>Actually, though, there are plenty of problems that require the largest 
>available power, and, in the commercial world, there are an increasing
>number of really big applications (e.g. VISA-type credit cards) which,
>generally, need an increasing number of transactions-per-second.  Anyone
>tried to buy anything with a VISA card the last week before Christmas?
>The wait can be rather long.   Credit card companies, Airline Reservations, 
>banks with ATM applications, you-name-it.  All have increasing needs for
>systems with expanding transaction rates.  A system which can do 2000 
>transactions/sec may indeed be worth a *lot* more than 200 systems which 
>can do 10 trans./sec.

Amex have brought several `super'computers recently as I recall (though
it is late at night...) eg a CM-5 for doing ``promotional mailshots''
around 92Q2, and think I remember an nCUBE being mentioned too.

And they are not alone.  Much as I hate to think of all these `big'
machines being used for sending junk mail and running subscription
lists, those are big jobs that will get bigger.

Damon
-- 
Damon Hart-Davis        d@hd.org   London UK   Tel/Fax: +44 81 755 0077  [1.37]

Two separate jobs, two employers: (1) Editor of Parallelogram, (2) Consultant
and seller of uucp news/mail feeds (UK#5 pcm, FIRST MONTH FREE) and cheap Suns.