if you look at what a chip is actually doing nowit's not really strictly true that things that were being done on supercomputers then are mainstream now. your mobile phone is a wonder of technology compared to a 60s mainframe.
i think i know what you mean though, i'm just very pedantic :) ultimately there's a limit to what we can use to do computing with. until something like quantum (or photonic) computing gets anything like usable, we're stuck with semiconductor physics, and increasingly complicated ways of harnessing it. the thing i find most impressive is that basically there is no-one in the world who really understands how, say, a third generation i7 chip actually works overall except in fairly general terms
(i think i know what you mean though, i'm just very pedantic :) ultimately there's a limit to what we can use to do computing with. until something like quantum (or photonic) computing gets anything like usable, we're stuck with semiconductor physics, and increasingly complicated ways of harnessing it. the thing i find most impressive is that basically there is no-one in the world who really understands how, say, a third generation i7 chip actually works overall except in fairly general terms
boris the spider,
Sat 11 Aug 2012, 20:41,
archived)