[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: How many times must Apple make such DRASTIC architecture changes?

Paul Schlyter wrote:
In article <roy-4F63C0.08385109062005@reader1.panix.com>, roy@panix.com says... 



Paul Schlyter <pausch@NOSPAMsaaf.se> wrote:


But whenever that "4 GByte limit" becomes too limiting, it is pssible
to start using different segments again. [...] don't expect this to
happen until more than 4 GBytes of RAM gets common.
If Moore's law holds, that only a couple of years away. Today we're at the point where most desktops or laptops ship with at least 256 Meg, and it's not uncommon to find a Gig in a high-end personal machine. 


Moore's law doesn't seem to hold as much anymore...


In 1994 I bought a personal PC: a 64 MHz 486 with 8 MB RAM and 1 GB HD
In 1998 I bought another personal PC: a 300 MHz P-II with 64MB RAM and 8 GB HD
In 2002 I bought another personal PC: a 1.8 GHz P-IV with 512 MB RAM and 120 GB HD
Next year it's time for my next PC, which should be a 10 GHz P-VI with 4096 MB RAM and an 1800 GB HD ..... I don't think that will happen.... 

During the late 1990s I continually presented the problems that
the industry would face as "Moore's Law" (actually an economic
proposition, not a "law") increasingly decelerated as physical
and economic limits were reached.

The go-go years were dominated by rapid expansion of capabilities
and new applications--a kind of virtuous circle of growth.  In such
a rising market, many inefficiences can be tolerated.  But as the
slope of the growth curve flattens, due to silicon difficulty and
market maturation, smaller and smaller margins must finance greater
and greater fab process costs.

I predicted that if the industry did not respond to this phenomenon
early (by this decade) to make a "soft landing", that there would
be widespread losses and dislocations, accompanied by a loss of
confidence in technology as an engine of growth.

As is plain to see, no one ever listens to Cassandra, and all must
endure their fate.  ;-)  Of course, to be fair, no one can be expected
to be the first to put their short-run profit motive aside.

It will be very interesting to see how the industry fares in the
post-Moore's Law, technology-as-commodity world we are entering.

The parallels with oil production and consumption are intriguing.
Maybe all "shocks" have this common structure...

-michael

8-voice music synthesizer using NadaNet networking!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/