[Scottish] Computing Power debate

[ObjectWiz]

On Fri, 2002-09-27 at 12:07, Kevin McDermott wrote:
> Still doesn't really answer where our power is going.
> 
> If a 4.7GHz machine is 1000 times more powerful than a 4.77Mhz machine, why don't things go 1000 times faster?
> 
> Memory has increased even more, and storage devices too...
> 
> If you consider that the Motorola 68000 series of processors were developed for use in Mini-computers, and nowadays pretty much any modern processor can emulate the chip very quickly...I still get left feeling that somewhere, someone's consuming processor power for no gain.

The answer is much simpler. The more power is available, the more people
put into the programs and the more resources they need. Just look at the
size of Excel or Word on disk now compared to a few years ago and most
of the users use it in exactly the same way.

--wiz