From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Fri Nov 15 2002 - 22:07:06 MST
> "Charles Hixson" <charleshixsn@earthlink.net>
>
>>Yes. I believe that Mr. Gates has been a net detriment to the
>>computer community.
I love games and competitions. They bring out the
best and worst in humans, they sharpen our minds
and bodies, they are fun to watch. We are seeing
a great competition between Gates and Moore.
Fourteen years ago I bought a mac. Took a couple
minutes to boot up. Five years ago I bought a
Personal Confuser running Windows. Altho the
PC was 50 times faster, much to my dismay it still
took about 2 minutes to boot. Score tied.
Last year I bought a 2 GHz PC. It only takes
about a minute to boot, so Moore might be slightly
ahead of Gates. But wait, Microsloth fans! Bill
might yet have an effective counterattack. Perhaps
Billware may prove rapacious enough to cleverly
devour all the performance increases dished out
by Intel.
Of course in the long run, computing performance
improvements face some fundamental limits: the
size of atoms and the speed of light, whereas
there is no apparent limit to the ever increasing
inefficiency of software. Perhaps quantum computing
will come along and again put Moore in the lead.
But then of course, Gates could counterattack with
quantum bloat.
Can someone explain to me why, on a 2 GHz computer,
it *still* takes over a minute to boot? In those
100 billllllion clock cycles, please someone tell
me exactly what the hellllll is going on in that
operating system? Why does it takes over 100 billllllion
cycles? Why could my old mac boot up with less than
five thousanths as many cycles? Is this not the most
stunning example of retrograde technology in all of
human history? Will we eventually see multi-terahertz
personal computers that still take 2 minutes to boot?
spike
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