The world's first microprocessor was a U.S. government project

Oh - I have no doubt that OverClockers are hard at work Jacking things up (Intel HATES this BTW - they have done a number of things to try to stop it - Personally I am starting to get a little disappointed with Intel - I am Switching to AMD )!

The Problem is that Heat Sinks & Huge Fans will just not cut it eventually - you can't just keep adding more & more Transistors & not Re-design/Re-Engineer the Over All System. Do you realize that "ATX" was not even designed with concepts like the Systems "Internal Airflow" in Mind! OEM's could learn a LOT from Automobile Manufacturers!

As for Overall System Performance - I am not too worried about the Hardware - The Current Generation has PLENTY of HorsePower & it is still Growing/Expanding!

It is Bad/Sloppy/Bloated Code/Software that is the REAL Bottleneck! These Software Companies (not just One of them - ALL of them) really need to get their act together!

[edit on 22-4-2005 by Seraphim_Serpente]

Deffinatly make the switch to amd man you wont be dissapointed (unless you multi task alot like burning cds while encoding all of your mp3's and working on photoshop at the same time).

AMD is the gamers cpu and kicks intels rear in all charts. The thing that makes me mad is that OEM's wont ship there systems with amd. Although they do ship servers they say there isnt enough demand for amd cpu's(Bs).

Intel allready tried to move the industry over to BTX form factor but no one did at all. There either going to start making the entire Case into a Heatsink without fans(allready out there but $) or just start shipping comps with water cooling coming standard.

Yeah Intel just has waaaaay too must Influence & Control & Power - they dropped the Ball & now I think they should be knocked down a notch! If you really think about it - it is not Really OEMS that gave Micro$oft all of that "Influence & Control & Power" - it was Intel! After all Microsoft's Software Products were written to run on Intel's 25 Year old x86 Architecture Technology since Day One & it still is today!

Quote: "unless you multi task a lot like burning cds while encoding all of your mp3's and working on Photoshop at the same time".

Oh I beg to Differ - on AMD's Latest E4 Stepping of the Athlon 64 line - they just added SSE3 Instructions & a Meg of L2 Cache! In Reality it is Intel’s "HyperTheading" (I like to call it "HyperMarketing") that is the REAL Boondoggle! The AMD64 Architecture kicks Hyperthreading & "EMT64('s)" BUTT! These new Chips will be Released in Early May (same 90nm Process as Intel) & will DEF kick the Prescott's BUTT in ALL Benchmarks - watch & see!

Apparently, what you folks don't seem to realize, is that once a bottleneck is cured, there seems to be another. It's a never-ending story.The chip is to slow, so they increase the clock speed. Now the chip is faster, but the motherboard can't keep up. Design a better motherboard to keep up with the chip, and now the memory can't keep up. Re-design the motherboard, and now the chip and the memory can't keep up with the motherboard. See where I'm going with this??

Your hard drive is 1000's of times slower than the rest of your computer. Your ram works at nano second speeds while the hd works at milli. Thats really the only bottleneck in terms of normal user performance. Other than that it would have to be your FSB which determines your overall speed as it is. You could have a 100000 gig cpu but it your FSB is like 133 ur gonna be super slow.

I know this thread is a little old but I just found it. I was the designer on the F-14 CADC and the technology we used was available and being used in commercial. The manufacturing company was American MicroSystems of Santa Clara and they were making lots of custom stuff and high volume memory and calculator chips. The reason the F-14 had the 1st microprocessor was not any credit of the navy or any other government organization. it was because the specs required could not be done any other way. ... high speed, low power, small size, low weight, etc. Most technologies current at the time would not do the job. The only choice we had if it was going to work was the new "LSI" technology. It took lots of trade-off between speed, size, and function to come up with the working design. Chip technology was a huge factor. This paper I wrote in 1998 talks a little more about the trade-offs.

microcomputerhistory.com...

"LSI Technology State of the Art in 1968"

Ray Holt

Originally posted by ulshadow

Originally posted by slank
.
Interesting and insightful historical info, beyondSciFi.

Does make one wonder what the government might have now, of which the public is unaware.

Probably not the UFO fantasy stuff, but they might have some pretty amazing stuff. Estimate 10 years ahead on the technology curve.
.

well, studies shows that US government is at least 30 years adhead of it's civilian world and tech.

i wanna know the truth! i want to know everything they got, i want to know the billions that we spend on the black projects for!!! we spend more on black projects than the entire chinese army, navy, airfoce etc... right now, they must have something really good and some pretty high tech stuff up in their sleaves.

[edit on 27-8-2006 by rayholt]

[edit on 27-8-2006 by rayholt]

Ah, the joys of computer engineering.