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End of The Von Neumann Computing Age?

Posted by timothy on from the until-it's-on-my-desk dept.

olafo writes "Three recent Forbes articles: Chipping Away, Flexible Flyers and Super-Cheap Supercomputers cite attractive alternatives to traditional Von Neumann computers and microprocessors. One even mentions we're approaching the end of the Von Neumann age and the beginning of a new Reconfigurable computing age. Are we ready?"

2 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Well, by 0x00000dcc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Paradigms in science are not meant to last forever, they are usually broken, and computer science is no stranger to this candy.

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    -- (Score:i, Imaginary)

  2. Three articles by stratjakt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Two requiring a subscription, and one a goofy PR piece about wingnut FPGA "computers" that cost 200Gs and up.

    Anyways. The FPGA machines sound intriguing, but really arent as 'all powerful' as the non-techie Forbes piece makes them out to be. Not everything is parralellizable, not everything is conducive to dynamically altering the instruction set as you run it.

    The traditional von neumman architecture is the best solution for many processing tasks, lots of stuff is just conducive to a sequentially operating processor. It's probably the best for all around general computing.

    And 200 grand is probably better spent on a beowulf cluster of something than one of these boxes, but I'm sure they have a niche of usefulness somewhere.

    I dont expect to see the traditional computer go anywhere anytime soon.

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    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!