From:	Mike Loseke <mike@*******.COM>
Subject:	Re: Real-Life Computing ...
Date:	Tue, 26 May 1998 17:31:50 -0600

Thus spake Ereskanti:
>
> In a message dated 5/26/98 4:58:36 PM US Eastern Standard Time,
> mike@*******.com writes:
>
> > However, Intel shipping speeds like this to mass market consumers for
> > somewhat reasonable prices, is important. The more power on distributed
> > systems, whatever the processor, will only bring us nearer to the
> > Matrix-like netowrks of the future. I'm already saving up for a datajack
> > and an encephalon. :-)
> >
> funny, I always thought one of the things in our way was connection speeds,
> not processor speeds at this point....

That point of distinction is becoming more and more blurred as of
late. New switches and routers (and switching routers and routing
switches) are doing less in software and more in hardware. Have you
heard the phrase "wire speed?" This term is being thrown around by router
and switch manufacturers to describe the flow of traffic through their
devices. Basically, these devices, which have traditionaly been choke
points for network traffic, are capable of becoming almost transparent
to the flow of traffic across the wire between connection points. They
do this by making routing and switching decisions at the hardware level
instead of going through multiple layers of software.

With the increase in use of ATM, and gigabit ethernet basically here now,
the network will become less of a bottleneck than storage devices and
CPU's, especially when you take into consideration that you can bond
multiple pipes into much larger pipes which can handle more traffic
than any one computer can throw at them, for both backbone and single
connection use.

Of course, these high-speed networks still don't do anything for the
home user behind an analog switch on crappy phone lines being served by
US West. But with newer housing developments having fiber run out to
the slick instead of copper this is becoming more of a moot point. The
telco's are actually doing quite alot to improve the network as a whole
in some areas.

--
| Even Einstein objected to the idea of
Mike Loseke | wave-function collapse, calling it
mike@*******.com | "spooky action-at-a-distance."