Position & proposal

[William A. Barnett-Lewis]

>Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 11:00:16 +1000
>From: Chris Bitmead uid <chris.bitmead@alcatel.com.au> (x22068)
>Subject: Re: Position & proposal
>To: lispos@math.gatech.edu
>Reply-to: Chris.Bitmead@alcatel.com.au
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>>Perhaps it's simply philosophical, but I believe that any computer
>>resource is inherently cheaper than 1 second of a user/programmer's
>>time.
>
>Not if that resource happens to be a Cray YMP.

Ultimatly, Yes, even in the case of that mega bucks YMP. I had a job helping
build the beasties one winter. Nothing exciting, just inspecting PCB's after
coming out of the etching tank. But what I saw hither & thither there gave
me a deep respect for the machine. Still, I think my time and the time of
Joe Snuffy 
is still even more valuable than that. The performance of my 75 mhz P5 box
is laughable next to a YMP. Next to Cray 1? Or the ol' Vax 11-780? Or, most
important of all, to the trash-80 I first learned to program on?

>>Hence 1 user = 1+ cpu and all resources. Once you begin timesharing, you
>>create artifical scarcity (artificial in the sense that it's
>>unnecessary)
>
>Only artificial if you consider everyone who needs a Cray should have
>their own.

Exactly. Someday, everyone will. We aren't doing JPark on PC's yet, but big
chunks of Babalon 5 are...

William
William A. Barnett-Lewis
wlewis@mailbag.com
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