Fastest supercomputer gets faster

[Corey]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4379261.stm

[JimS]

So, how long do you figure it will take, until common desktops reach 135 teraflops? 20 years or so? Will desktops even be common in 20 years?


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[Corey]

Good questions. I don't think desktops as we know them will be dominant in 10 years let alone 20, they're way too inconvenient and environmentally harmful. Except for in under-developed and debt-ridden nations, they'll be using our old desktops for the next 20 years for sure...

Already laptops seem to be getting very near the point where a lot of people who would normally never consider a laptop as their main computer, just might. Including me. The Tablet PCs are definitely a superior solution and something the vast majority of consumers would prefer if the price were right. Of course it's the largest consumer markets which drive the products, and in each sector the largest markets exist in relation to the least skilled users, so Tablet PCs have a very high appeal from both sides. Cheap to ship, small retail box to stock, no installation process such as with a desktop, etc, etc, etc... I expect some form of the current day Tablet PC to be the hot thing next decade. Also integrated units, i.e. built right into new TVs.

As for the speed, I have no idea about that because the manufacturing sector is essentially balanced on the head of a pin in light of current economic events. A hot market can develop in four years what a slow market takes a decade to produce. So there's a lot of intangibles right now. Almost all large corporations are putting off upgrading hardware networks longer and longer these days. Some companies who used to upgrade hardware every 6 months are now looking at 2 years. Part of that is that today's CPUs/RAM are generally very good and can drive some pretty elaborate applications without problem. We don't suffer from the same lack of speed we used to, i.e. business software development no longer outpaces business hardware development the way it used to in terms of resources.

"Last year's computer" nowadays is still generally a pretty decent/usable unitl whereas in 1999 "last year's computer" would have been a clunker by comparison. Seems like we hit a threshold in the past year or so where most new consumer computers are pretty sufficient for basic workstation usage (non-gamers) for a couple years, i.e. for a person coding PHP all day, the difference between using a P4 2.5 Ghz and a P4 3.5 Ghz is ostensibly nil.

Should be interesting to see how things play out, one things for sure there's no lack of change in the software world. Think back to how we used to buy and use software in 2000 compared to today. It's a whole different ball of wax. Now we have authorization, extensive online help files, free SDK, support ticket system, built in updating, etc. None of those were "standard features" in 2000 but nowadays no one even thinks twice about them. :)

Anyway you slice it, it's a great time to be alive. We got lucky. We were born right at the advent of mass computerdom. We got to see *all* the coolest stuff. In 20 years this stuff will all have normalized and it'll be about as exciting as radios and telephones are now. :)

[Desmond]

I'd like to see the next giant leap in computers move towards a central solution, as opposed to individual units. WHat I mean by this is the difference between our computers right now (desktop/laptop/tablet/whatever), and ... well ... startrek.

Right now, we have TONS of computers, all individal. Sure, they talk by way of the internet, or other equally limiting techniques, but they do not experience true synargy.

Take a treky computer, on the other hand. There you have one central computer than can manage the requests of a seemingly infinite number of individuals (and fly a cool space ship to boot!).

That is not to say I want to see a move back towards the old mainframe systems. But the first step in teh right direction is what sun has done with their ray servers (i think that's the accurate line). They have terminals that the user inserts a smart card into . . .they do something at one terminal (even a video conference), take the smart card out, move to another terminal, insert the smart card, and continue where they left off. THeir session is centralized on the server, and is independant of the individual terminals.

My 2 cents . . . as for smart appliances, i LOVE that idea. TV's in microwaves . . . and reciently LG has developed a washing machine that has a web server in it . . . so you can start your load of wash from work! Why? i'm not quite sure . . . but it's cool.

[Desmond]

ya . . .err . . .um . . .in the future, those nice centralized comptuters will auto-correct everything I type! (if i type at all, that is). Shesh! :)

[Corey]

Hey I'm all for anything which completely integrates Desmond's entire life's work with that of Fred Durst. :yes