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CPU Wars
msolnik writes: "Whether you say "0.13-micron" as most of us do, or "130-nanometer" as PR flacks prefer, the phrase is weighing heavily on both Intel's and AMD's minds. Indeed, each company's timeline in reaching that mark may determine who calls the CPU shots in 2002. Read more here at Hardware Central." Other submitters noted that AMD and Motorola have both updated their development roadmaps.
People always get exited at faster and faster CPUs.
But what is the use ?
Ok, it's a good marketing argument to make people buy new computers every 2 years.
But is there any significant advancement in computer programs ?
You would now say Quake and CS but these are only a few games. And most their functions could be spend up by dedicated co processors (this arguments is around for years but always stompe up by Intel and AMD to make people buy their expensive new processors).
And graphical user interfaces ?
These were running on old macs which had only 5 percent of the processing speed of modern cpus.
Are programs becoming more useful ?
Most software is today just silly bloatware, you need several 100 MB of storage for a program which fullfill just the functions a 2 1.44 MB floppys program did in 1990.
There is also an unholy connection to OO.
Programmers take often OO as an excuse for bloated (which is not the same a reusable) and uneffective code. When their program is too slow the don't fix this, they just claim that the computer is too slow.
And perhaps AI ?
This is nonsense, too. Most AI problems are in the core at least NP complete, sometimes even PSPACE.
So just speeding up the CPU doesn't help anyway, we need totally different computer models for such problems, e.g. read the recent slashdot article about ants (hello hex).
So the CPU capacity increase is just a scam from the computer manufacturers. We should boycott this and it can be done: we just make our open source software compatible to old system and let AMD and Intel to starve in the desert.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.