A Computer’s Eye View (from 1972)
How far has computer technology advanced since this was written in 1972? In the proceeding chapter, Kemeny describes the then-new GE 635 machine that ran the Dartmouth Time Sharing System: the “dual processor system is capable of some 10 million multiplications per minute.”
That works out to be 166,166 multiplications per second. (I’m assuming these are “fixed-point” multiplies: no decimals allowed.)
A Pentium 4 can do at least one multiplication per clock cycle; for a 1.7GHz P4, that’s 1.7 billion multiplications per second. Rounding a bit, that 2002 Pentium 4 is about 10,000 times faster. (And if that GE 635 cost 10 million dollars
The question I have to ask is, where has all that power gone? On what have we spent all the speed? Do we do anything 10,000 times faster or even 10 times faster? Or do we instead use this tool more than the other (pen and paper, sliderule, calculator, ledger book), thereby soaking up the capacity?
As much as it seems we should have a surplus, when you look at examples like the one above, there still seems to be the demand for more.
The simple answer is that we waste most of our CPU power. Most clock cycles are used by the System Idle Process (in Windows) or the equivalent.
Think of the millions of cycles spent to provide an onscreen calculator on which you might multiply 2 numbers. On a prehistoric machine they’d have used only a few clocks on a multiply. No full-color GUI, no broadband running in the background, no blogs… And even with all that, our CPUs usually just twiddle their thumbs.
I wonder what Kemeny would have thought possible with a few GFLOPS (3 GHz is expected by the end of 2002), not to mention the supercomputers of today.
Long ago, I worked with a fellow who wanted to design his own computer. He used to tell say “No matter what the hardware boys come up with, the software boys will piss it away.”
But where does it all go? Sliding menus, fonts, mice, networks .. lots of stuff that that you didn’t have sitting at the other end of a 110 baud teletype (or a 300 baud Decwriter if you were lucky).
Absolutely. My question was partly rhetorical.
Paul Andrews knows that MSFT wants us all to upgrade, but he rightly points out that the internet has broken the iron law of upgrades. Now people are deferring upgrades as they realize they’ll get more bang for their buck with bandwidth than they’ll get from a faster CPU.
Some measure of maturity in the marketplace has helped as well: I have said before we’re in the chrome and cupholder era, where standards are well-established and the new features are no longer must-haves. Given my budget and penchant for lean — and free — OSes, I’m getting a lot of mileage from old machines. Would I like a new iBook? Sure. But if I had one, I’m sure I’d have it for a long time to come.