Computer Technology, how far...

Hey people. :)

I remember the time when PII-PIII's where top of the market, when it was cool to have a 16mb voodoo and 32 meg sdram, where a 4 gig hard drive seemed to last forever.

That was 4, 5 years ago. Now look what we have 3ghz+ cpus, ddr, 256meg vid cards, 300gig hdd, wireless networking.

2 years ago i went to a local puter shop and i saw 1gig pentium for over £300 and now we over tripple that for more £'s.

I know this sounds like a trip down memory lane, all of a sudden i was thinking WOW how fast is Technology moving. and i cant get it out my head, i know its an obvious thing, but sometimes you dont realize it.

What with, 64 bit cpu's and OS's, SATA, new upcoming Monitor Technology, and with all this also comes with a high price tag.


My question to you all,

Is Technology moving faster and faster for us to catch up and for the thickness of our wallets?

How fast will we see cpu's go in the next 5 years, how much more are we gonna have to spend.

Geez give us a chance to catch up.




Id like your views

Thanks:D

I would rather have technology go faster because I want something slobber and slave over/for... If technology went slower then a turtle, everyone would have the most up to date software/hardware....there would be no reason to brag....hehe(see below) im so proud of her!!! although shes not completely up to date shes [*-deleted word-*] close to it

(*** Polite language only please ***)

I like it the way it is....like the competition that has arisen especially with vid cards. We're seeing some really terrific chipsets coming out and, even though they are expensive little buggers when they first come out, it is really making the gaming industry pump out higher quality stuff---it can only benefit the end users.

But I DO relate to the slobbering and slaving.....;)

Dont get me wrong i am thankful for the new technology by god we need it, i love the new stuff but it all seems to be getting more expensive and by the time you can afford it's out of date.

Will there be a 10ghz cpu how many millions more transisters can the fit on cpu.

Its kinda exciting to think about what could be next

Forget 10ghz...they recently made some interesting breakthroughs with quantum computing. Very simply, it gives you even more choices than just 1 and 0---all shades in between and achieves states that are really neither "off" or "on" (weird...I know). In another 15 to 20 years we're going to see some real wild and super-fast stuff coming out---maybe sooner if some real smart dudes come up with some additional breakthroughs. Hold on to your hats....

Sometimes I wonder if things really will be that much different in 10 or 20 years time though. Sure we'll have more RAM and faster CPU's and bigger hard drives (or perhaps we'll have moved on to some other form of storage), but I'll bet that the apps will just have got more bloated and less efficient and we won't be doing anything very differently to what we are doing now.

I vividly remember listening to a fascinating programme on the radio as I was driving to work back in the mid '70s. The "guru" was promising us that by the turn of the century we would be wearing supercomputers on our wrists, robots would make everything and only a very few specialists would actually be employed. Everyone else would be paid for doing nothing while the machines did all the work. I don't see much sign of it happening anytime soon :(

That's true SS, although i dont know the 70's :p i do remeber in the late 80's and early 90's that by now we should be flying in cars rather than driving, and again it is predicted that this will happen in the next 50 years but somehow i wont believe it.

As for future apps what more could you add to a word processor.

Oh, i cant wait for Windows 2020 Second Edition SP20:)

Windows 2020 - you mean the one that needs 4 Exabytes of disk space for a minimal install and needs 8 Terabytes of RAM and at least a Pentium 57 running at 43 THz? Yes, that 's looking to be a good one, apart from the need for Product Activation every half hour :D :D

Yeah, youve heard about it too.:) ..

Only, for product activation you will be required to send Microbot (as it would be known as then) a letter for activation request within 7 days before use, and only after you receive a confirmation of Serial Num usually withing 10-14 working days will you be legally allowed to insert the damn cd and begin install.

But still it will be worth it:)

I have friends that ask me(being considered somewhat knowledgeable in these matters, {boy are they turning to the wrong place ;) } whether they need a new computer. I askthem this. Does your present computer do the things you want it to do? Does it do them at an acceptable speed?, Does it do them with a minimum of errors and warnings? If the answer is yes, then save your money. The technology ensures that a faster better piece of hardware will certainly be out as soon as your computer arrives at the house, so if you do get a new one don't despair, your new Atlon XP machine will be more fun than your old Pentium II. Also buying a new machine sporting stuff that has slid just a little off the bleeding edge, can give quite a performance boost, and save quite a few bucks to boot.

Here's some interesting stuff that's coming:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/32859.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/32858.html

i love my 80386, and would not give it up for the world








HAHAHAHA jk

You wanna keep that 386 of you Tangz, i mean think of the stuff you can do with that, that you cant do with "power machine", like booting up in a cool but also slow way. :p

I wish i never got rid of my amstrad cpc 464, inserting that cassette and waiting for and hour just to play jaws, ahhh that was fun:D

Well, after reading that SS, i think Virtual Dr will be getting a hell of a lot busier in the next few years, come on bring it on:)

This is a really interesting post!

Question for you all though. Maybe they will have all these super-capacity CPU's + HDD, etc. But will we acutally need it?

Apart from those power-freaks out there (no offense) who would need a 30THz CPU and God-knows-how-much HDD space? Short from plugging a lead into the back of ya head for a 'virtual reality' game, most of it would be useless?

Am I right? This is just my opinion.

You may be right gizandpop.

We all think this now but remember, there was a time when 486's used in space shuttles. When bill gates said that 640k of memory is more than enough.

Now look where we are.

But the next 10-20 years there will be people looking back and saying how slow computers where.

This view will go on and on, this is what gets me excited, the thought of what's or whats not to come.

:D

OMG THAT IS FREAKIN AWESOME, THAT WOULD BE THE MOST BAD[*-deleted word-*] THING (just plug your head up and your in a game.) Ima see about marketing that. course i'll need my 30THz cpu to develop the game and my 50tb of ram to compile it and my 900 TB hdd to store it!!!

(*** Polite language only please ***)

Let me know how that goes tangz. Ill start saving my pennies for my extreme super duper mega fantastic powerful 'puter.

By then i should have enough to buy the cpu and mabey a stick of ram.

:)

Quote:

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Originally posted by P3-450
Let me know how that goes tangz. Ill start saving my pennies for my extreme super duper mega fantastic powerful 'puter.

By then i should have enough to buy the cpu and mabey a stick of ram.

:)

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IF we can even afford that much!

Big changes in the last 4 years. P II 400MHZ to P4 3.2GHZ.
Ram speed has improved, FSB can stand some help. But those slow poke hdds and pci buses need help real seriously! APG is right there with them also!

Whose turn is it to kick the manufactors? I done mine :D

hey, P3, I still have a Voodoo 3 16 mb ram, still kickin :D . I can still play my friends in uh, Red Alert... Speaking of new technologies, there was some sort of NASA material I read about called "aerogel" some kinda superconductive material thats supposed to replace the "stone age" silicon (no more rocks for processors). :)

Also, I think it's already available, for I read this almost a year, of E-PCI or ultra PCI, something to that tune. Its bandwidth even in its infancy whips AGP's by quite a large margin. By 2020, maybe, just maybe, Microsoft will make a decent OS. No more fatal flaws in the computer that wipes your registry by opening a word pad or a bug that will send your credit card numbers to all of Thailand.

Some interesting pints raised in this one.

Strangely enough I was just saying to my wife that new processors are being released so quickly now, it makes you wonder if they have already invented the super processor and are just releasing incremental updates to make money off the people who must have the newest and best.

ie processors seem to be constantly improving whereas other components have hit their limit. For a while CD-ROMS and burners were advancing but seem to have hit around a 52x limit and now DVD speed is advancing.

So it would seem that maybe there are some limitations on some things or myabe it's not worth spending the money on advancing that particular hardware.

The other thing is 'bloating'.

My father in law just purchased a system that has a 2.4Hz processor, 512Mb Ram WinXp etc etc when I checked it out on the weekend, it seemed slower than my 950Mhz 384Mb WinMe system.

I didn't check into what was running in the background and I know my system is pretty slick in terms of tweaking I've done, but for something brand new vs 2.5 years old I would have throught it would be cranking.

I agree there on that one, maybe they HAVE al ready cracked a super cpu....

But if they were to have limitations on other hardware, what would be the point in having super fast comonents mixed in with 'joe average' ones? On this point maybe they will be forced to develop newer and better CDRW's and such.

Or maybe a whole new removeable media device altogether? Any1 heard anything abot this in the pipeline? Or any other exciting new developments?

GP

ps got that plug and play (into ya head) thing from the Matrix (if u hadn't guessed!)

gizandpop

your system

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AMD Duron 945MHz, 20GB, 256RAM, MSI CDRW, Atapi DVD, GeForce 2 MX 400, XP Pro, wish I had more!

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appears similar to my system

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AMD Athlon 952Mhz, 20GB, 384RAM, LG CDRW, LG CDROM, Geforce 2 MX 400, WIN Me

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I like the technology, I am sitting here running a new P-5 7.5GHZ, with 3.5MB TDR (triple data rate), RAM, and two 400GB hard drives, I also have a 384MB NVIDIA card and a 100/1000/10000 NIC card too.
Tuly this machine is great, and I just can't wait until next month to get my newly ordered machine that is twice as fast as this one. I only paid 12,000.00 for this one. The 750 watt power supply only blacks the house out 3 times a week with my house transformer upgrade for just 15,000.00. A real steal.

Just a sample of Technology run wild..

That is what we really have going on here
:D :) :D :D :p

I'd never Buy a PC for $12,000! :o

Quote:

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Originally posted by OilPatch197
I'd never Buy a PC for $12,000! :o

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People said they'd never by a car for $12,000 too :p :D

Technology is moving so fast one has to wonder if they really have a product perfected before they release the lastest upgrade? In the race to market the latest and fastest gismo, quality seens to get lost. Where will it end? Computers are already fast, how do you make them faster?

If I look back at the past 10 years here is what I see.

I'll use my computer from 10 years ago as an example:

33Mhz
250MB HDD
1MB SVGA Video Card
4MB RAM
2400bps modem
Windows 3.1/DOS 6

Ten Years Later:

We have CPU's above 3Ghz and 64 bit processing for desktops

More gigs of HDD space than I would know what to do with.

256MB Video cards with GPU Speeds that make my 5 year old computer look stupid.

(My system here has 1 gig of pc2700 RAM)

A whole new world of operating systems, here and some on the way that some of us are excited about seeing.

And who could'nt live without a cable modem! I know people can live without them, but I personally could never use dial up ever again.

WOW, more good point and views.:)

OK, Luke Im with you on the whole cable modem thing, i have had broadband coming up to 2 years now and i cannot think about how depressing it would be to go back to dial-up. That screeching noise aghh i would go crazy. I reckon though its getting easier and easier for people to get broadband now so i reckon dial up will slowly go away.

Ecrosson youve just given me another thought, we are thinking about new technology but with that has to come more power demands how much power will our future componets require? will we have to cut the supply to the tv just so we can turn our computers on?


jmtjet

Quote:

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Where will it end?

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Technically has it started yet? :)

I have also read that hardrives in the future could adopt solid state technology.

Where there are an array SDRAM modules in a HD like chassis.
And a seek time of 50-100 micro seconds is considered. Hmmm

Hey Nix, we do have similar systems!!

One question...

Sure, they can probably create these super fast hardware. But can they produce software that would actually need this kind of resources (and that the market would need?)

I mean, apart from games. Even they are limited...most of the processing power they take up is thru graphics. How much more 'real' can they become?

would be interesting to see wouldn't it...:cool:

I would think that graphics would be demanding more and more power from the computer in the years to come what with more superb video images and graphics in games, i dont think there will be software other than OS's and high end graphics/CAD software will require faster cpu's i cant really see what the need will be.

Maybe the software for your plug and play idea gizandpop be the first 'real' test.:D

News for the next five years? Pretty tall order but rest easy I have it from a pretty reliable source the next few years hold much promise.

Excerpts from Steve Wozniak's Autobiography "The Wizard Woz" Published 2020.
2003: The beginning of the IT Renaissance. The entertainment industry still in the throes of its own debacle of not keeping up with current technology welcomed Apple’s introduction of iTunes. Later that year Apple released Windows versions 1.0, 1.01, 1.11 and then later 2.0. interestingly enough each version was released soon after Microsoft corrected yet another security flaw.
2004: April 1 the Jester virus was released into the wild. A particular deadly virus this nasty piece of work infected only Windows versions prior to Windows 2000. Systems affected resulted with melted processors.
April 29 the pecuniary mercantile worm shutdown 65% of the world’ servers. Networks of note affected were the Worlds Stock Exchanges, AOL (not that their users notice any difference: must have figured it was business as usual) Department of Homeland Security, and major air traffic control centers and port authorities around the world. This work of genius morphed into one of 256 flavours every two hours each flavour replicating itself as it replaced freshly deleted files. The resultant two weeks of down time was so catastrophic it took financial markets the remainder of the year to recover fiscally speaking.
May Congress passes bill 174582 requiring manufacturers of operating systems to incorporate Firewall technology that is compliant with Department of Homeland Security specifications.
May Microsoft announce release date of Longhorn, the next version of XP has been postponed indefinitely.
June Microsoft announce dramatic rise in sales of the Windows XP He
September 20 Apple’s iTunes buys out Capitol records and EMI sources quote recent economic down-turn for business failures. Steve Jobs optimistic over the new business model success predicts new licensing agreements with other recording industry giants will make iTunes the only way to shop for music.
2005: January Canadian Secret Intelligence Service determine the identity of the author of the pecuniary mercantile worm as Marwin Al Shafir. MI5 and the CIA confirm ties with Al Qaeda. Department of Homeland Security given broader scope of powers and responsibilities. Microsoft, Symantec and Network Associates accuse government of creating a Brain Drain.
January Western Digital introduce the SMTA (Storage Media Technology Attachment) unlike the recent release of the Solid State drives the SMTA storage media is not comprised of electronics but a crystalline material allowing users to read, write, and rewrite using lasers. The SMTA comes originally stocked with two crystals that can store up to one hundred and forty Gb each. For the power hungry user who wishes to upgrade all he need do is add an additional crystal to the SMTA which will hold as many as ten crystals. Using fiber optic cabling to transfer data WD expects to obtain sustained transfer rates of at least 1000 Mb/s. The SMTA allows for easy and simple data backups simply by swapping crystals and copying data from one partition (crystal) to the next which if stored in a light-proof container (the device provided to either install or remove the crystal) will allow you to salt away data permanently.
February Intel announce new bus technology PDQ (Pathing Dynamic Queuing) to replace the current PCI technology with PDQ the final bottle neck has been removed! Intel took advantage of their latest improvement on their own system board and refused to share for the initial six months after debuting PDQ. Allowing a throughput up to 512 Mb/s. featuring a 5 Gigabit LAN controller, quad-channel TDR800 memory support (max 10 Gb), an AGP 16X slot, 12 USB 2.0 ports (6F & 6R), next-generation storage device support: SMTA with a transfer rate of 1000 MB/s, as well as the current Solid State drives with a transfer rate of 500 MB/s and SATA with a transfer rate of 150 MB/s. PDQ supports the slower Hyper-threaded processors P5 but was originally designed for the new Pentium Quadnium. The latest Intel Quadnium 10.06 GHZ with 64MB cache and 1.4 Ghz 1400/1200/1000/800 FSB.
September the Department of Department of Homeland Security held a press conference revealing proof they have obtained that Sony CEO, Nobuyuki Idei, has been secreting money to the P.L.O. Al Qaeda, Hizballah External Security Organisation, and the coup attempt in Seoul, South Korea last summer. Sony of course denied all allegations as did the Japanese Government. the Department of Department of Homeland Security froze all Sony’s assets in the U.S. and initiated a trade embargo against Japan asking the same of its N.A.T.O. allies. All but France complied.
November George W. Bush was again elected President despite rumours that the trade embargo was having no effect and that he appeared to be soft on Japan. Democrats apparently were all for another Hiroshima \ Nagasaki run.
2006: March Japan capitulates, offering Nobuyuki Idei up for trial and forces Sony into dividing the company into smaller corporate entities each to go on the auction block. Nintendo purchases Playstation. Microsoft purchases both Sony Pictures and Sony Electronics. Apple’s iTunes purchases Sony Music.
August Viewsonic releases a 3-D monitor problem is no one has software yet to use that capability.
October Microsoft releases the eagerly awaited Longhorn. Among the many security issues of previous versions plugged it is touted by many as “the best operating system Microsoft has ever released.” Several improvements incorporated were self-correcting software, automatic data corruption prevention and verification tools, and as you might have guessed a complete 3-D GUI. In an effort to keep the desktop clean icons were replaced with iconics; cubes that can be turned in any direction each containing up to 6 icons that can be clicked on to launch an application or program. The term double-click was also redefined as clicking with both the left and right click which opens a pop-up menu.
December MSN launches a series of satellites into orbit in a bid to become the first global Ultra Broadband Internet Service Provider. MSN boasts a minimum of 200 Kb/s download and 100 Kb/s upload.
2006: January AOL responds by following MSN’s lead. By the end of the month they release AOL 12.
February AOL’s satellites stop responding after the first update was released. Go figure.
March Steve Jobs holds a press conference demanding the disbanding of the RIAA. Universal, A&M, Atlantic oppose the idea but acquiesce after Jobs threatens to ‘give a break to the consumer’ by charging significantly less for each download from Sony, EMI, and Capitol Recording labels.
April AOL’s satellites have been floating around up there still not responding to any communications. Within days of each other the satellites begin to plummet earth bound. Most fall into the Pacific but one crashes into the Children’s Hospital and Health Center San Diego another levels the Gregorian Etruscan Museum in Vatican City. AOL Time Warner filed for bankruptcy protection.