Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?

On Thu, 12 Dec 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

The thing that puts me off quantum is that media loves to hype it. That to me, is a sign that it is nowhere near being ready for anything productive. But I am not a physicist! But based on this group it does seem I am more right than wrong.

>
 Google just blew its horn today about it's new quantum
 chip - solved some 1000x-age-of-the-universe math
 problem in about five minutes.
>
 https://blog.google/technology/research/google-willow-quantum-chip/
>
 BUT, that particular problem was especially easy
 to address with quantum methods ....

Well, my measure of doing anything productive with it is... is anyone paying
google to solve that problem? If not, it is just intellectual masturbation and
of very little value.

I would imagine once we hit that end point in terms of regular cpus, the only direction left would be purpose built cpus on other technologies for niche use cases such as biological computing, quantum computing, optical etc.

  Bio is gonna be too SLOW. Quantum, we've discussed that.

 Isn't the idea behind bio massiev parallelism? So yes, the computation might be slow, but if you have millions of molecules performing it in parallel you do get fantastic results if the problem you are trying to solve fits the nature of bio computing?

>
>
 But again ... NOT all problems are especially well
 solved with massive parallelism any more than all
 problems can be Q-computed worth a damn.

Well, that is why I said "niche use cases" in my original text. I agree, not all
use cases are suited for that, and my thesis was that when we hit a limit on
general cpu:s, bio, photonics, quantum, will be developed for niche cases, that
fit those technologies. Not, that those technologies will help with our every
day cases.

 So we're back to the more modern question of what
 "computing" MEANS. All was clear with UNIVAC, but
 since then ...
>

Seems like photonic is the winner for the moment.

>
 Don't see any other direction. We're already kinda
 bumping-up against Moore even now with conventional
 electronics. For anything needing linear calx, I think
 we MIGHT get a 10x improvement and that's IT forever
 with transistor-like electronics.

10x over todays figures? Nothing to scoff at, but I guess the question is, how
long will it take us to get those 10x?