Re: (OT) The desktop supercomputer has arrived!

On 27 Jun, 04:17, JB <hong...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.physorg.com/news102087207.html

A prototype of what may be the next generation of personal computers has
been developed by researchers in the University of Maryland's A. James
Clark School of Engineering. Capable of computing speeds 100 times faster
than current desktops, the technology is based on parallel processing on a
single chip.

jb
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<QUOTE>
Suppose you hire one person to clean your home, and it takes five
hours, or 300 minutes, for the person to perform each task, one after
the other," Vishkin said. "That's analogous to the current serial
processing method. Now imagine that you have 100 cleaning people who
can work on your home at the same time! That's the parallel processing
method.
</QUOTE>

Now suppose that the algorithm used requires that 298 steps be
processed in strict sequence and that only two items can be performed
in parallel. Total savings would be 1 minute and that is one of the
problems with parallel processing - the extremely limited amount of
work that can be carried out in parallel.

I did like the statement that programming would be relatively simple
(compared to what?). Perhaps this presages the demise of the
programmer.

FWIW: parallel processing is already a reality with multiple cores per
chip already in existence.

.

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