From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:08:23 +1100 From: Sam Watkins To: 9fans@9fans.net Message-ID: <20091028190823.GA2378@nipl.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) Subject: [9fans] parallel systems Topicbox-Message-UUID: 92e890c0-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 I think my main points were good. * can parallelize by duplicating subsystems / divide and conquer * can parallelize by pipelining, even down to the arithmetic level * latency is limited by Ahmdal's law, potential throughput should not be * multi-tasking can potentially use close to the full power of a system A factory is a parallel system. A car factory can come close to fully utilizing thousands of human and robot workers. I think well-designed parallel systems can efficiently solve many laborious computing problems. Invocations of Ahmdal have not convinced me otherwise. Sam