22 Feb
2003
22 Feb
'03
3:22 a.m.
Jim Battle wrote:
If you were to time travel to 1970 and find a lab
using a PDP-8 doing
some kind of computational work, and ask them if they'd want to trade it
in for a 3 GHz PC that you brought back with you from the future, I have
no doubt that they'd take the PC and they'd find a way to make it work,
despite the I/O and software differences.
The 8 don't crash! The 8 has auto-restart mode. The 8 has non-volatile
memory and real time OS. If the 8 is running lab equiment it still
out performs the PC. And it even can be repaired.
I've had the discussion with workmates about the
following scenario. If
the German forces had access to a single 5150 IBM PC back in 1940, would
the war have ended very differently? I think it would have. Now we
dismiss that much computational power as inconsequential.
I read a Short story where instead of WWII Germany developed time
travel.The end of the story had WWII happen because time travel
was a dead end path for mankind.The computer came too late in the war
to change much for germany and most people capable of understanding the
use of a computer had left the country or made the moral choice not to
develop computers for the war effort.
Ignoring all of that, why are you bringing up the
PDP-8 and -11 in the
context of computers that weigh under 1 kg?
It is the I/O and other stuff that is heavy.0's and 1's don't weigh a much:)
Ben.