On 4/1/2014 10:09 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 09:07:33 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:

On 4/1/14, 8:59 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 08:24:15 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:


I won't comment on the relative speed of an app running under XP versus
Windoze 8. I don't have any machines handy that run either.

Yet you continue to.

I would suggest that until you actually benchmark a few movies, you
are talking out your ass.

The reality is i do not do enough video editing for it to even be a
factor and if the minute or two it takes me dropped to 5 seconds, it
would not change my opinion.
I do know I can encode a typical MP3 cut in about 15 seconds and that
is fast enough for me.



Ahh. The point was not whether what you do with a computer could be done
faster on a more powerful computer with a modern OS. As I stated several
times, I have no idea what you do with a computer beyond running some
weather app and a "jukebox." I mentioned video transcoding because it is
a good test of the OS, the app, and the hardware. There are any number
of other apps that run faster on modern gear.

Apparently what you do doesn't put much stress on your computer setups,
and since you have lots of time to wait, procedures that run faster are
not important to you.

Perhaps you should downgrade to an 8088 system and save electricity.


There you go.
You started out with a very rational response, then you just got
stupid on me.

XP is far from obsolete, there is not really that much functional
difference from it to W/8.
My hardware is still pretty fast, Moore's law is rapidly hitting the
speed of light wall. These days it is not getting any faster, you are
just widening the data path. That was the same pattern as we had in
the mainframe business. You end up running the speed of your DASD.
These days that is RAM if you really want to go fast.
I am still running with a very low paging rate most of the time.

If my applications run in my lane, I am not getting much faster.

You are right, I might be able to shave a minute or two off of a few
very intensive computer tasks but I am not really in any hurry. If I
crank up something that will take a while, I have other things right
here I can do. I can just get a cup of coffee, take Ed for a walk,
take a boat ride.
If I need to get more work done on the computer, I have 5 more right
here, all sharing most of the same files.
I live a lot less stressful life than you I guess.



Gregg, I would think by now that you would realize that if Harry wears
size 36x32 pants, then *everyone* should wear size 36x32 size pants.

There are far more systems out there running Windows XP than what meets
the eye from a computer user's standpoint. Debit card machines, gas
pumps, cash registers, etc. have been using Windows XP for years and
continue to do so.

Technology marches on though.

Wafer fabrication and line widths for CPUs are now at the sub-micron
level. Many believe technology is quickly reaching the practical limit
of line widths and power densities. In some applications artificially
created diamond heat sinks are required. (Diamond has the unique
property of being an electrical insulator but an excellent heat
conductor. The company I had built some systems for the creation of
polycrystalline diamond films, generated by disassociating carbon from
gases like methane or butane with a plasma in vacuum).

A future technology that is emerging is the replacement of traditional
PC boards with copper conductors with those that transmit data using
tiny optical emitters and detectors. The big advantage is that signal
paths can cross without affecting each other. I am currently doing
some consulting work with a company involved in this.

On 4/1/14, 11:18 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 4/1/2014 10:09 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 09:07:33 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:

On 4/1/14, 8:59 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 08:24:15 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:


I won't comment on the relative speed of an app running under XP
versus
Windoze 8. I don't have any machines handy that run either.

Yet you continue to.

I would suggest that until you actually benchmark a few movies, you
are talking out your ass.

The reality is i do not do enough video editing for it to even be a
factor and if the minute or two it takes me dropped to 5 seconds, it
would not change my opinion.
I do know I can encode a typical MP3 cut in about 15 seconds and that
is fast enough for me.



Ahh. The point was not whether what you do with a computer could be done
faster on a more powerful computer with a modern OS. As I stated several
times, I have no idea what you do with a computer beyond running some
weather app and a "jukebox." I mentioned video transcoding because it is
a good test of the OS, the app, and the hardware. There are any number
of other apps that run faster on modern gear.

Apparently what you do doesn't put much stress on your computer setups,
and since you have lots of time to wait, procedures that run faster are
not important to you.

Perhaps you should downgrade to an 8088 system and save electricity.


There you go.
You started out with a very rational response, then you just got
stupid on me.

XP is far from obsolete, there is not really that much functional
difference from it to W/8.
My hardware is still pretty fast, Moore's law is rapidly hitting the
speed of light wall. These days it is not getting any faster, you are
just widening the data path. That was the same pattern as we had in
the mainframe business. You end up running the speed of your DASD.
These days that is RAM if you really want to go fast.
I am still running with a very low paging rate most of the time.

If my applications run in my lane, I am not getting much faster.

You are right, I might be able to shave a minute or two off of a few
very intensive computer tasks but I am not really in any hurry. If I
crank up something that will take a while, I have other things right
here I can do. I can just get a cup of coffee, take Ed for a walk,
take a boat ride.
If I need to get more work done on the computer, I have 5 more right
here, all sharing most of the same files.
I live a lot less stressful life than you I guess.



Gregg, I would think by now that you would realize that if Harry wears
size 36x32 pants, then *everyone* should wear size 36x32 size pants.

Nonsense.

On 4/1/2014 11:38 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:18:39 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 10:09 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 09:07:33 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:

On 4/1/14, 8:59 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 08:24:15 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:


I won't comment on the relative speed of an app running under XP versus
Windoze 8. I don't have any machines handy that run either.

Yet you continue to.

I would suggest that until you actually benchmark a few movies, you
are talking out your ass.

The reality is i do not do enough video editing for it to even be a
factor and if the minute or two it takes me dropped to 5 seconds, it
would not change my opinion.
I do know I can encode a typical MP3 cut in about 15 seconds and that
is fast enough for me.



Ahh. The point was not whether what you do with a computer could be done
faster on a more powerful computer with a modern OS. As I stated several
times, I have no idea what you do with a computer beyond running some
weather app and a "jukebox." I mentioned video transcoding because it is
a good test of the OS, the app, and the hardware. There are any number
of other apps that run faster on modern gear.

Apparently what you do doesn't put much stress on your computer setups,
and since you have lots of time to wait, procedures that run faster are
not important to you.

Perhaps you should downgrade to an 8088 system and save electricity.


There you go.
You started out with a very rational response, then you just got
stupid on me.


My hardware is still pretty fast, Moore's law is rapidly hitting the
speed of light wall.
Gregg, I would think by now that you would realize that if Harry wears
size 36x32 pants, then *everyone* should wear size 36x32 size pants.

There are far more systems out there running Windows XP than what meets
the eye from a computer user's standpoint. Debit card machines, gas
pumps, cash registers, etc. have been using Windows XP for years and
continue to do so.

Technology marches on though.

Wafer fabrication and line widths for CPUs are now at the sub-micron
level. Many believe technology is quickly reaching the practical limit
of line widths and power densities. In some applications artificially
created diamond heat sinks are required. (Diamond has the unique
property of being an electrical insulator but an excellent heat
conductor. The company I had built some systems for the creation of
polycrystalline diamond films, generated by disassociating carbon from
gases like methane or butane with a plasma in vacuum).

A future technology that is emerging is the replacement of traditional
PC boards with copper conductors with those that transmit data using
tiny optical emitters and detectors. The big advantage is that signal
paths can cross without affecting each other. I am currently doing
some consulting work with a company involved in this.


You are still hitting the wall.
Regular chips are about tapped out.
We are rapidly approaching the point that we will be super cooling
processors to get quantum effects.
There is only so much you can do to shorten the data path.
They are just making them wider. (multiple processors, wider buses)


Ummm ... I don't claim to be a semiconductor manufacturing expert nor
have a lot of experience in wafer fab but there are companies investing
a lot of research money into the optical replacement of copper tracing
of single, double and multi-level boards. The focus ( no pun intended)
is on reducing size and complexity. Not sure what gains in overall
processing speeds are achieved although claims are made that it will.

These are tiny, pin head sized laser diodes. The cool thing is that the
light paths can intersect others with no interference or "shorts".

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:
On 4/1/2014 11:38 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:18:39 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 10:09 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 09:07:33 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:

On 4/1/14, 8:59 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 08:24:15 -0400, F*O*A*D wrote:


I won't comment on the relative speed of an app running under XP versus
Windoze 8. I don't have any machines handy that run either.

Yet you continue to.

I would suggest that until you actually benchmark a few movies, you
are talking out your ass.

The reality is i do not do enough video editing for it to even be a
factor and if the minute or two it takes me dropped to 5 seconds, it
would not change my opinion.
I do know I can encode a typical MP3 cut in about 15 seconds and that
is fast enough for me.



Ahh. The point was not whether what you do with a computer could be done
faster on a more powerful computer with a modern OS. As I stated several
times, I have no idea what you do with a computer beyond running some
weather app and a "jukebox." I mentioned video transcoding because it is
a good test of the OS, the app, and the hardware. There are any number
of other apps that run faster on modern gear.

Apparently what you do doesn't put much stress on your computer setups,
and since you have lots of time to wait, procedures that run faster are
not important to you.

Perhaps you should downgrade to an 8088 system and save electricity.


There you go.
You started out with a very rational response, then you just got
stupid on me.


My hardware is still pretty fast, Moore's law is rapidly hitting the
speed of light wall.
Gregg, I would think by now that you would realize that if Harry wears
size 36x32 pants, then *everyone* should wear size 36x32 size pants.

There are far more systems out there running Windows XP than what meets
the eye from a computer user's standpoint. Debit card machines, gas
pumps, cash registers, etc. have been using Windows XP for years and
continue to do so.

Technology marches on though.

Wafer fabrication and line widths for CPUs are now at the sub-micron
level. Many believe technology is quickly reaching the practical limit
of line widths and power densities. In some applications artificially
created diamond heat sinks are required. (Diamond has the unique
property of being an electrical insulator but an excellent heat
conductor. The company I had built some systems for the creation of
polycrystalline diamond films, generated by disassociating carbon from
gases like methane or butane with a plasma in vacuum).

A future technology that is emerging is the replacement of traditional
PC boards with copper conductors with those that transmit data using
tiny optical emitters and detectors. The big advantage is that signal
paths can cross without affecting each other. I am currently doing
some consulting work with a company involved in this.


You are still hitting the wall.
Regular chips are about tapped out.
We are rapidly approaching the point that we will be super cooling
processors to get quantum effects.
There is only so much you can do to shorten the data path.
They are just making them wider. (multiple processors, wider buses)


Ummm ... I don't claim to be a semiconductor manufacturing expert nor
have a lot of experience in wafer fab but there are companies investing a
lot of research money into the optical replacement of copper tracing of
single, double and multi-level boards. The focus ( no pun intended) is
on reducing size and complexity. Not sure what gains in overall
processing speeds are achieved although claims are made that it will.

These are tiny, pin head sized laser diodes. The cool thing is that the
light paths can intersect others with no interference or "shorts".

11years ago when I retired, we were reaching the limits of Moore's law. We
are using larger wafers for manufacturing efficiency, but the geometry is
pretty close to the limits. Lower voltage, so no arcing, but dendrites
start growing at the lower geometry size. So limit of how many transistors
per square mil of silicon, unless you start vertical stacking. The optical
processor would be an improvement in speed, as the RC time constants are
avoided or minimized in the signals.

On 4/1/2014 12:45 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:00:08 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 11:38 AM, wrote:


You are still hitting the wall.
Regular chips are about tapped out.
We are rapidly approaching the point that we will be super cooling
processors to get quantum effects.
There is only so much you can do to shorten the data path.
They are just making them wider. (multiple processors, wider buses)


Ummm ... I don't claim to be a semiconductor manufacturing expert nor
have a lot of experience in wafer fab but there are companies investing
a lot of research money into the optical replacement of copper tracing
of single, double and multi-level boards. The focus ( no pun intended)
is on reducing size and complexity. Not sure what gains in overall
processing speeds are achieved although claims are made that it will.

These are tiny, pin head sized laser diodes. The cool thing is that the
light paths can intersect others with no interference or "shorts".

I have read about it in the trade rags. It still seems to have the
intent of making shorter and marginality faster data paths.
When you are splitting hairs on the speed of light vs electrons on
copper, in a chunk of real estate the size of your thumbnail, there is
not much more speed to be had.
Now when they get this quantum computing thing going, they are off to
the races again. I doubt you will have that on your desk anytime soon.


The available bandwidth of an optical system is orders of magnitude
greater than that of copper conductors. Hence, more data can be moved
faster simultaneously.

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:37:57 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:22:24 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 12:45 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:00:08 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 11:38 AM, wrote:


You are still hitting the wall.
Regular chips are about tapped out.
We are rapidly approaching the point that we will be super cooling
processors to get quantum effects.
There is only so much you can do to shorten the data path.
They are just making them wider. (multiple processors, wider buses)


Ummm ... I don't claim to be a semiconductor manufacturing expert nor
have a lot of experience in wafer fab but there are companies investing
a lot of research money into the optical replacement of copper tracing
of single, double and multi-level boards. The focus ( no pun intended)
is on reducing size and complexity. Not sure what gains in overall
processing speeds are achieved although claims are made that it will.

These are tiny, pin head sized laser diodes. The cool thing is that the
light paths can intersect others with no interference or "shorts".

I have read about it in the trade rags. It still seems to have the
intent of making shorter and marginality faster data paths.
When you are splitting hairs on the speed of light vs electrons on
copper, in a chunk of real estate the size of your thumbnail, there is
not much more speed to be had.
Now when they get this quantum computing thing going, they are off to
the races again. I doubt you will have that on your desk anytime soon.


The available bandwidth of an optical system is orders of magnitude
greater than that of copper conductors. Hence, more data can be moved
faster simultaneously.


AKA a wider data path. ;-)

Well...that *was* a bit funny!

On 4/1/2014 3:27 PM, Poquito Loco wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:37:57 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:22:24 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 12:45 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:00:08 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 11:38 AM, wrote:


You are still hitting the wall.
Regular chips are about tapped out.
We are rapidly approaching the point that we will be super cooling
processors to get quantum effects.
There is only so much you can do to shorten the data path.
They are just making them wider. (multiple processors, wider buses)


Ummm ... I don't claim to be a semiconductor manufacturing expert nor
have a lot of experience in wafer fab but there are companies investing
a lot of research money into the optical replacement of copper tracing
of single, double and multi-level boards. The focus ( no pun intended)
is on reducing size and complexity. Not sure what gains in overall
processing speeds are achieved although claims are made that it will.

These are tiny, pin head sized laser diodes. The cool thing is that the
light paths can intersect others with no interference or "shorts".

I have read about it in the trade rags. It still seems to have the
intent of making shorter and marginality faster data paths.
When you are splitting hairs on the speed of light vs electrons on
copper, in a chunk of real estate the size of your thumbnail, there is
not much more speed to be had.
Now when they get this quantum computing thing going, they are off to
the races again. I doubt you will have that on your desk anytime soon.


The available bandwidth of an optical system is orders of magnitude
greater than that of copper conductors. Hence, more data can be moved
faster simultaneously.


AKA a wider data path. ;-)

Well...that *was* a bit funny!



It has absolutely nothing to do with the physical size of the "path",
copper or laser beam.

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 15:47:40 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 4/1/2014 3:27 PM, Poquito Loco wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:37:57 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 13:22:24 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 12:45 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:00:08 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 11:38 AM, wrote:


You are still hitting the wall.
Regular chips are about tapped out.
We are rapidly approaching the point that we will be super cooling
processors to get quantum effects.
There is only so much you can do to shorten the data path.
They are just making them wider. (multiple processors, wider buses)


Ummm ... I don't claim to be a semiconductor manufacturing expert nor
have a lot of experience in wafer fab but there are companies investing
a lot of research money into the optical replacement of copper tracing
of single, double and multi-level boards. The focus ( no pun intended)
is on reducing size and complexity. Not sure what gains in overall
processing speeds are achieved although claims are made that it will.

These are tiny, pin head sized laser diodes. The cool thing is that the
light paths can intersect others with no interference or "shorts".

I have read about it in the trade rags. It still seems to have the
intent of making shorter and marginality faster data paths.
When you are splitting hairs on the speed of light vs electrons on
copper, in a chunk of real estate the size of your thumbnail, there is
not much more speed to be had.
Now when they get this quantum computing thing going, they are off to
the races again. I doubt you will have that on your desk anytime soon.


The available bandwidth of an optical system is orders of magnitude
greater than that of copper conductors. Hence, more data can be moved
faster simultaneously.


AKA a wider data path. ;-)

Well...that *was* a bit funny!



It has absolutely nothing to do with the physical size of the "path",
copper or laser beam.

I believe you, but it was just humorous. You referred to 'available bandwidth' being greater, and
Greg talked about a 'wider path'. Well, to a rank amateur like me, 'greater bandwidth' and 'wider
path' sound pretty similar!

Believe me, I wasn't trying to impugn anything you said. When y'all get into the technical stuff, I
keep well out of it.

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 16:02:33 -0400, Poquito Loco
wrote:

I believe you, but it was just humorous. You referred to 'available bandwidth' being greater, and
Greg talked about a 'wider path'. Well, to a rank amateur like me, 'greater bandwidth' and 'wider
path' sound pretty similar!

===

There are basically two ways to achieve greater bandwidth. One is to
send data at higher speed in a single stream. That works but it is
presently running up against the speed of light, as well as density
and cooling issues. The second way is to break up the data into
multiple parallel streams, i.e., "a wider path", sort of like
converting a two lane road into a 3 or 4 lane road so it can handle
more cars.

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:38:15 -0400, wrote:

You are still hitting the wall.
Regular chips are about tapped out.
We are rapidly approaching the point that we will be super cooling
processors to get quantum effects.
There is only so much you can do to shorten the data path.
They are just making them wider. (multiple processors, wider buses)

===

There's talk of stacking vertical substrates also. However the big
future opportunities are in developing better software that can take
advantage of massively parallel processors like IBM's Watson. Those
machines are very esoteric and expensive with today's hardware but
it's only a matter of time before they can stamp them out like jelly
beans. Present software systems have to be highly customized to take
advantage of that kind of power and more generic solutions are needed.
If quantum computers ever become a reality, and they probably will,
they will all will be massively parallel. The possibility of
simulating human thought at blindingly fast speeds is somewhere out
there on the horizon for better or worse, along with instant and
accurate language translation, monitoring millions of security cameras
simultaneously, accurate long range weather forecasting, and a whole
bunch of stuff that hasn't even been thought of yet. Computer
applications are already designing new computer hardware and have been
for some time. What we need now are applications that design and
produce new software.