Paul Dale:
>Both this solution and Scotts don't really mesh very well with a tiny
detail
>from the class Book 8 where massively parallel machines are allocated
TL=8.
I disagree with MT robots on practical grounds: the crew requirements
stated in MT are meaningless, when the average model-1 has an equivalent
INT of 10, and an EDU of (about) 200. This would allow your average
model-1
to provide 50 men for the crew of a ship, even without synaptic processors.
So put one guy on board to control the computer, and let the computer
handle
all the rest (unless your ship is over 5000T, anyway.)
>Once they become available, adding extra machines isn't going to improve
>performance all that much (because you already have thousands of them).
WHy not? If I have a computer controlling my J-drive (some of those
thousands of processors), why can't I have another to control the M-drive?
I suspect (based on SOM) that while they speak of "massively parallel"
machines, they really mean parallel machines netted together. And you
can net anything together.
>The limits could be imposed by the software methodologies present at the
>given TL rather than the hardware being pushed to the limit. i.e. If
building>large parallel machines were simply a matter of throwing lots of
$$$$s and
>silicon at the problem then we'd have them already (and my PhD would not
be
>worth finishing :-).
If so, then once the software methodologies were developed (those for TL15
must have been developed by 960 or so), they can be applied at any TL with
computers. So any computer size could be built at any TL. And I thought
we were already building massively parallel machines in the USA.
Later...
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I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.
--W. von Braun