How long till super-processors are developed?

[Other.au]

Theres seems to be endless suggestions that current technology will be super-seeded by advanced processors that use different methods to "think."
E.g.
•light chips" (chips that use light as a medium)
•processor clusters (i.e. groups of 10 or so processors that work as a single processor - suggestions PS3 will have it)

How far away is this technology? How much has it developed?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Theres seems to be endless suggestions that current technology will be super-seeded by advanced processors that use different methods to "think."
E.g.
•light chips" (chips that use light as a medium)
•processor clusters (i.e. groups of 10 or so processors that work as a single processor - suggestions PS3 will have it)

How far away is this technology? How much has it developed?

Optical computing ("light chips") is still in its infancy as far as development. It is nowhere near ready for use in the mass market. Clustering is well-developed, but is simply not being deployed as much as it could be, at least in the consumer computing space (dual-processor Macs are just the beginning).

 

[Other.au]

Any reason why cluster chips arent been used on a much larger level?

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Any reason why cluster chips arent been used on a much larger level?

cluster chips are effectively cluster machines - its not cheap.

Although, clustering will probably gain momentum once more software is made available that allows for effective use of the technique. There aren't that many off the shelf systems that take advantage of it. Also, there really aren't that many people (especially consumers) who could benefit from it.

D

 

[Golem]

Well I think anyone who ran that powerhouse for its time a 8100/80 would think a G5 is a super processsor right now let alone say a mac 128k user if we go back another decade.

While their are a number of technologys that show promise for some sector of the market its difficult to predict which technology wlll get the breakthrough to give it mass appeal. Even if you have the hardware you still need the software. As an example 25 years ago my High school computer science teacher said in a few years we will have flat LED tv's hanging on our walls all they need to find is how to make Blue LED's. They never found blue LED's as far as I know and so they never did make TV's out of them. It had to wait for the LCD instead.

One 16k commodore Pet,30 Students I think we have come a fair way

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Well I think anyone who ran that powerhouse for its time a 8100/80 would think a G5 is a super processsor right now let alone say a mac 128k user if we go back another decade.

While their are a number of technologys that show promise for some sector of the market its difficult to predict which technology wlll get the breakthrough to give it mass appeal. Even if you have the hardware you still need the software. As an example 25 years ago my High school computer science teacher said in a few years we will have flat LED tv's hanging on our walls all they need to find is how to make Blue LED's. They never found blue LED's as far as I know and so they never did make TV's out of them. It had to wait for the LCD instead.

One 16k commodore Pet,30 Students I think we have come a fair way

Blue LEDs have been developed, but the LED-based display idea never got going and simply faded away. OLEDs are the replacement upcoming technology for LED displays - OLEDs (Organic Light-Emitting Diodes) are more environmentally friendly than traditional LEDs.

 

[7on]

Wasn't the G4 debuted as a super computer?