February 1998
- OT: Following in the footsteps of JCL Alex Oren
- OT: Following in the footsteps of JCL Nathan Yospe
- OT: Following in the footsteps of JCL Richard Woolcock
- OT: Following in the footsteps of JCL Chris Gray
- OT: Following in the footsteps of JCL coder@ibm.net
- OT: Following in the footsteps of JCL Marc Eyrignoux
- Ada? Andrew C.M. McClintock
- Monthly FAQ posting Koster, Raph
- Monthly FAQ posting Adam Wiggins
- Monthly FAQ posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Chris Gray
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting J C Lawrence
- Monthly FAQ Posting J C Lawrence
- Monthly FAQ Posting Alex Oren
- Monthly FAQ Posting Greg Miller
- Monthly FAQ Posting s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling Lo
- Monthly FAQ Posting Koster, Raph
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling Lo
- Monthly FAQ Posting Greg Miller
- Monthly FAQ Posting Marian Griffith
- Monthly FAQ Posting Greg Miller
- Monthly FAQ Posting Ling Lo
- Databases Shawn Halpenny
- OT: This is a test coder@ibm.net
- OT: This is a test Alex Oren
- Clients and things [Was: OT: This is a test] Matt Chatterley
- Clients and things [Was: OT: This is a test] coder@ibm.net
- Clients and things [Was: OT: This is a test] Matt Chatterley
- MUD Development Digest Dr. Cat
- DBs and Events Greg Munt
- DBs and Events Nathan Yospe
- DBs and Events Greg Munt
- DBs and Events Nathan Yospe
- DBs and Events Felix A. Croes
- DBs and Events Jon A. Lambert
- DBs and Events coder@ibm.net
- DBs and Events s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- DBs and Events Jon A. Lambert
- DBs and Events coder@ibm.net
- (subject missing) Ben Greear
- META: Unsubscribed users dur to bounces coder@ibm.net
- META: Unsubscribed users dur to bounces Adam Wiggins
- Source Code Release Greg Munt
- Source Code Release Ben Greear
- Source Code Release Greg Munt
- Source Code Release Ben Greear
- Source Code Release Greg Munt
- Source Code Release Richard Woolcock
- Source Code Release Ben Greear
- Source Code Release Chris Gray
- Source Code Release Greg Munt
- Source Code Release coder@ibm.net
- Source Code Release Richard Woolcock
- Source Code Release Stephen Zepp
- Source Code Release Jon A. Lambert
- Source Code Release Greg Munt
- Source Code Release Jon A. Lambert
- Source Code Release Greg Munt
- Source Code Release Travis Casey
- Source Code Release Jon A. Lambert
- Source Code Release Jon A. Lambert
- [RESEARCH]MUD articles archive (fwd) Greg Munt
- Socket programming (Was: The impact of the web on muds) Jon Leonard
- Socket programming (was: The impact of the web on muds) Vadim Tkachenko
- Socket programming (was: The impact of the web on muds) Richard Woolcock
- byte-code anyone? Chris Gray
- byte-code anyone? Jon Leonard
- byte-code anyone? Chris Gray
- byte-code anyone? Jon Leonard
- byte-code anyone? Chris Gray
- user-centered design (was Clients) Mike Sellers
- OT: Linux g++ Greg Munt
- OT: Linux g++ Ben Greear
- OT: Linux g++ coder@ibm.net
- OT: Linux g++ Shawn Halpenny
- OT: Linux g++ Chris Gray
- OT: Clients Vadim Tkachenko
- OT: Clients Adam Wiggins
- OT: Clients coder@ibm.net
- META: OS wars coder@ibm.net
- META: OS wars Mike Sellers
- Clients Stephen Zepp
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Brandon J. Rickman
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Adam Wiggins
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Chris Gray
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) coder@ibm.net
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Brandon J. Rickman
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Mike Sellers
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Chris Gray
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Ben Greear
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Ling
I wasn't gonna join coz it didn't seem particularly on topic but I'll try
and turn it round. Ho hum.
On Sun, 15 Feb 1998, Ben Greear wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Feb 1998, Brandon J. Rickman wrote:
> > On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 16:24:56, Mike Sellers <mike@online-alchemy.com> wrote:
> >
> > Problems with Moore's Law:
> >
> > "computational power" merely refers to a measure of how many operations
> > a chip can perform in a fixed amount of time. The higher the MIPS
>
> Sure, MIPS aren't everything, but Memory, HD, monitors and everthing
> else is getting faster and cheap as well...
No, MIPS aren't everything. There are dedicated application specific
chips for digital signal processing working on the basis of one
instruction multiple data. One instruction operates on a chunk of memory.
Think hardware blitter. The most recent widespread example being Pentium
MMX. The MMX thing does exactly this. Same MIPS, more speed.
> > Designing for an imaginary machine is a gamble. Some people can afford
> > to make that gamble, and some of them might make a lot of money off of
> > it. But overall, blindly accepting high-stake risks is not only
> > foolhardy, it is bad business practice.
>
> I say those who design for today are going to be outdated by the time
> they finish their product. Design for super high end machines today,
> and by the time yer done, it will be a common machine...
Designing for imaginary machines isn't that much of a gamble in the
computer industry I would have thought. For computer games, the target
machine keeps moving and you *have* to design for an imaginary machine to
have a competitive product that uses all the features then. Otherwise
it'll look pale in comparison and get relegated to the budget bins. It's
not a blind high risk strategy coz it's expected to carry on forever. (to
my amazment.)
Seeing as we're on muds here, I thought the main worry would be bandwidth.
Strangely, it costs 750 million pounds to lay a 300,000 simultaneous voice
optic fibre transatlantic. Working at full capacity with peeps paying for
a pound a minute, it breaks even after 2 days... Okay, a more realistic
figure is 2 weeks but why aren't there more fibres being laid down? I
find bandwidth has been quite scarce lately coz more peeps are joining and
downloading silly graphic intensive webpages than the network is
expanding...
Any predictions for this one? Apart from we're all gonna use the mains
supply to surf the web. The only reason I'm personally on the net is coz
I'm abusing University resources. When I leave, I will probably lose
access bar email. (I don't care for the rest of the wiglets.)
Maybe I should transplant myself to Singapore which is expecting to be the
first country to have optic fibres to every home. (beating the Japanese.)
Then again, the limiting factor on optic fibres isn't the fibre, it's the
hardware box on the ends. It's a very new-esque field, there are no
international standards, the first decade is going to be rough with every
man and his dog inventing a new standard for their local area. It's
expensive to have redundant outlets for 'future expansion' on fibre
networks and upgrading requires vast portions of the network to go down.
The technology to make superfast transmitters is quite expensive. That is
a hurdle worth more than any chip advancements for the next 5 years.
We'll see.
> > Moore's Law has been manipulated by an aggressive advertising campaign.
> > Computers now do less with more. Productivity has not increased.
> > (Productivity was hardly even measured before computers entered the
> > workplace, so the argument is moot.)
>
> Some productivity goes up, some goes down or stays the same. Some do only
> slightly more with more, but I don't think many do less.. I'd like an
> example...
I do less work coz I have telnet access. :) This is actually quite true
coz I've spent the last 12 hours doing practically nothing. (added 500
whole words to my report.) Help! Put me out of my misery! Is there the
equivalent of a telnet placebo?
> > This all began with:
> > >I had a fascinating discussion with a guy from Intel recently.
> >
> > Hardly an objective source. I once heard that VRML was the future of
> > 3D, but I think it was Mark Pesce who said it.
The above thing from an Intel engineer is vaguely accurate as far as I'm
concerned coz it correlates with what I know about optical chips and
copper based chips (copper based = replacing aluminium wires, not the
silicon substrate). This has a very weak link to muds. Most mud clients
require minimal resources to run on, there's nothing to process. Quake is
probably a little more intensive than a hectic pkmud like Tron. Total
Annihilation (C&C clone) actually compresses the packets before sending
them out. Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth!
VRML just looked poxy to me. Gut instinct which said "It's poo". I'm
usually right with these new fangled crazes. :P It's pointless, webpages
are messie enuff as they are.
> I saw the new release where IBM had made it's first 1000mhz chip,
> prototype, but done none-the-less. Says it should be ready by 2001 or
> so.... Intel and Alpha may beat them to it even... Even when or if
> they slow down eventually, motherboard and CS in general will enable us to
> stack four of them side by side...or 16, 256...etc.....
Wires/tracks along PCBs stop acting like wires after the megahertz zone
and start behaving like transmission lines and waving around instead of
particling. I'm surprised chip companies haven't hit a brick wall with
those sort of speeds where any track loops larger than 12.5 cm start
interferring with the clocks... I have nightmares trying to design
circuits to work with a microprocessor pretending to be an antenna.
> > I'm all for progress in the world of muds, but I think the design
> > criteria, especially for the upcoming generation of graphical
> > muds/UOII/whatever, should be focused on the strengths of what is
> > already successful.
>
> What fun would that be?? I've got a perfectly fine and brand new text
> MUD, but it's already old by 5 years. Of course, we on this group will
> probably play them forever, I like text better than graphics, but coding
> more than both I spose. With that in mind, I'll probably try to write
> a graphical game for Multi users..but it would be dis-respectful to call
> it a MUD...
Graphics ... Hope you can draw more than just stick men. As for audio, I
have no idea how anyone would go about making sound fx. Crinkle a crisp
wrapper if you want a fireplace in your mud. :)
Calling it a MUD would possibly be commercially unviable. :P Muds have a
stigma, virtual worlds sound more politically correct and bland. Players
manipulate avatars, npcs are better known as ICE and people using
keyboards are called turtles. Welcome to the Matrix!
| Ling Lo of Remora (Top Banana)
_O_O_ Elec Eng Dept, Loughborough University, UK. kllo@iee.org - Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Brandon J. Rickman
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Ling
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) coder@ibm.net
- Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics) Alex Oren
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) Vadim Tkachenko
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) coder@ibm.net
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) Vadim Tkachenko
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) coder@ibm.net
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) coder@ibm.net
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) Jon A. Lambert
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) Raph & Kristen Koster
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) coder@ibm.net
- Version Control (was: DBs and Events) Felix A. Croes
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Jon Leonard
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) coder@ibm.net
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Vadim Tkachenko
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Chris Gray
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) J C Lawrence
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) J C Lawrence
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Adam Wiggins
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Chris Gray
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Vadim Tkachenko
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Chris Gray
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Vadim Tkachenko
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Chris Gray
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Adam Wiggins
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Chris Gray
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) J C Lawrence
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Chris Gray
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Adam Wiggins
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Ben Greear
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Adam Wiggins
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) Jon A. Lambert
- Net protocols for MUDing (was: Moore's Law sucks) J C Lawrence
- VEIL (was: Clients) Brandon Gillespie
- LDMs (large dynamic maps) was Unique items Mike Sellers
- Describing the environment Stephen Zepp
- Describing the environment Richard Woolcock
- Back on the list Niklas Elmqvist
- Back on the list Chris Gray
- Back on the list coder@ibm.net
- Unique items The Eternal City
- Unique items coder@ibm.net
- Position sorting Adam Wiggins
- Position sorting coder@ibm.net
- Unique items coder@ibm.net
- Unique items Nathan F Yospe
- BOOK: Myer's Silverlock coder@ibm.net
- BOOK: Myer's Silverlock Chris Gray
- BOOK: Myer's Silverlock Adam Wiggins
- Dynamic Loading of Modules (was: Back on the list) Niklas Elmqvist
- Dynamic Loading of Modules (was: Back on the list) Vadim Tkachenko
- Dynamic Loading of Modules (was: Back on the list) J C Lawrence
- Dynamic Loading of Modules (was: Back on the list Jon A. Lambert
- Net protocols for MUDing s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Net protocols for MUDing Stephen Zepp
- Net protocols for MUDing Chris Gray
- Net protocols for MUDing Adam Wiggins
- Net protocols for MUDing J C Lawrence
- Net protocols for MUDing Shawn Halpenny
- Net protocols for MUDing J C Lawrence
- Net protocols for MUDing Chris Gray
- Dynamic Loading of Modules Niklas Elmqvist
- Senses (was: The MLI Project) s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- bar-time (was The MLI Project) Mike Sellers
- 3D engines for MUDs (was: The MLI Project) Niklas Elmqvist
- 3D engines for MUDs (was: The MLI Project) J C Lawrence
- 3D engines for MUDs (was: The MLI Project) Michael Hohensee
- 3D engines for MUDs (was: The MLI Project) Miroslav Silovic
- 3D engines for MUDs (was: The MLI Project) Michael Hohensee
- Why not compile java into object code? Ben Greear
- Why not compile java into object code? Cynbe ru Taren
- Why not compile java into object code? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Why not compile java into object code? Nathan F Yospe
- Why not compile java into object code? Niklas Elmqvist
- Why not compile java into object code? Ben Greear
- Why not compile java into object code? Jon A. Lambert
- Why not compile java into object code? Travis Casey
- Why not compile java into object code? Chris Gray
- Tutorial: Comments on Hand-crafting a compiler Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part I: Introduction Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part II: Expression Parsing Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part I: Introductio Chris Gray
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part I: Introductio s001gmu@nova.wright.edu
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part I: Introductio coder@ibm.net
- MUD Development Digest Dr. Cat
- MUD Development Digest Koster, Raph
- MUD Development Digest Mike Sellers
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part III: More Expressions Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part IV: Interpreters Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part V: Control Constructs Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part VI: Boolean Expressions Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Comments Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part VII: Lexical Scanning Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part VIII: A Little Philosophy Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part IX: A Top View Jon A. Lambert
- Tutorial: Let's build a Compiler! - Part X: Introducing TINY Jon A. Lambert
- Compilers: Toy available for ftp Chris Gray