🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <15126@haddock.ima.isc.com>, news@haddock.ima.isc.com (overhead) writes:
> In article <503@ctycal.UUCP> ingoldsb@ctycal.UUCP (Terry Ingoldsby) writes:
> >It also seems to me that the current practice of throwing away computers
> >every 3 years or so cannot continue forever; it is evidence of an
> >immature technology that experiences quantum performance leaps every 3
> >years  (that's what makes it fun :^).  Eventually, performance improvements
> >may taper off a bit, so the advantage of being able to design a chip in
> >6 months instead of 18 will not be as great as it currently is.
> 
> I used to think these things.  I even worked for a company that
> had a 25 year old CDC 6600 in production.  The problem is this:
> the maintenance on the old machines is higher than the cost of
> new machines.  It is still true, only less so.  Why keep the
> current machine on contract when you could just let the machine
> break in six months (with some risk), and use the contract money
> to buy a newer (and maybe) faster machine?
> 

I *know* that it is cheaper to throw away old technology and bring in
the latest and greatest.  I have a three year old VAX that I would
*love* to get rid of, if I could find anyone foolish enough to buy
it.  And you're right, the maintenance costs are a major portion of the
justification.  So is increased productivity and functionality on the
part of the users.

> We keep hearing how one physical limit or another will soon be
> reached.  I make this prediction: computers will continue getting
> faster by the same expontial growth for the next ten years.  Some
> of the speed will come from raw hardware.  Much of it will come
> from more parallelism.  RAM density will continue to increase.
> Disk speeds and densities will get better.  Backup media will get

My point exactly, exponential growth for another 10 years.  Maybe 15.
At some point, *all* curves flatten.  Besides the economic reasons
for getting rid of old technology, there are economic penalties for
constantly throwing away working systems.  Aside from the obvious
hardware waste (I've heard of working mainframes dismantled with
hammers and thrown in garbage trucks) there are very substantial
software porting costs.  My point is that there will come a time
when economics will dictate that machines not be thrown out every
3 years.  Whether this will be in 5, 10 or 20 years I'm not sure.
The technology curve will then remain flat until a quantum break-
through takes place (analagous to the vacuum tube -> semiconductor
revolution).  I'm placing my bets on optical gates.  When that
breakthrough takes place, the whole thing will take off again and
the added power will allow previously undreamable applications to
be written.

-- 
  Terry Ingoldsby                       ctycal!ingoldsb@calgary.UUCP
  Land Information Systems                           or
  The City of Calgary         ...{alberta,ubc-cs,utai}!calgary!ctycal!ingoldsb