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With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

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Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#111

Post by groby_b »

LaikaF wrote: post #55
jacquesm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need the network connectivity anyway just to stay 'in sync'. But in off-line mode life would be a lot easier.

It could reduce the amount of data a smartphone needs. I'd like to keep a copy of my local area in my google map and then have it check in once a week to look for changes.

Not to derail the topic - but maps already does that.

Search for your area. Pull up info sheet for it. Click "Save map to use offline". (Although I've got no idea if it checks for changes)

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#112

Post by colanderman »

sp332 wrote: post #49
markbnj wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd probably still have memory partitioned into persistent areas and runtime heap of a sort, and you might very well continue to use the file system metaphor because it still makes sense to humans. Whether a file is bits on magnetic disk, in flash memory, or fast persistent RAM isn't all that meaningful to the user. As for sharing, I don't see why this would be an issue. If you have to move memory contents between…

Filesystem semantics are a bottleneck. Fusion IO had to get rid of them when they demoed their billion-IOPS platform last year. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3434711 For communicating data between programs, would you create a filesystem object that points to memory inside your program, or what?

That doesn't make any sense. Create a file, memory-map it, bam, you have RAM performance with "filesystem semantics". (There is NO overhead associated with memory-mapping a file on a ramdisk in the Linux kernel.)

Probably what they're referring to is something more along the lines of replacing SCSI or NFS with a protocol that is a better match for the random access patterns used to access in-memory structures. (Hence their 64-byte I/O size; that is equal to a cache line on Intel architectures.)

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#113

Post by TallGuyShort »

LaikaF wrote: post #57
rasz_pl wrote: post #50

TLDR they are hyping up Memristors and hinting at HP trying to bundle it with some of their proprietary crap if/when they finally deliver.

You know a lot of programs that know how to use memristors?

No, but I can name a lot of programs where the authors never even considered how hard disks or RAM worked.

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#114

Post by pistle »

politician wrote: post #22
valarauca1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means we might be able to make a literal version of the hitchhikers guide. All of human knowledge in your hand, no network connectivity needed.

> I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices [of copyright attorneys and trade industry groups] suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

You dropped your phone on the corner?

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#115

Post by jerf »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #96
viraptor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would movies and music really explode? Music hit the ceiling long time ago - nobody's going to go for higher resolution / sampling rate than the current "uncompressed" sound. Big publishers are intentionally sacrificing the quality for loudness anyway. Movies can practically scale up to retina-equivalent on wall-size equivalent only. Even then not many people will want TVs bigger than they can look at without moving…

> Music hit the ceiling long time ago - nobody's going to go for higher resolution / sampling rate than the current "uncompressed" sound. Spatial audio that supports dynamically computed surround sound for arbitrarily many speakers and headphones. > Movies can practically scale up to retina-equivalent on wall-size equivalent only. Even then not many people will want TVs bigger than they can look at without moving the…

"Spatial audio that supports dynamically computed surround sound for arbitrarily many speakers and headphones."

Still covers only a small arbitrary constant factor of data that is already very small by modern standards.

Note that surround sound data is, IIRC, already not "twice" the size of stereo.

And your video points 1 and 2 are also still at most only small constant factors of increase over what we already have, with 3 potentially being a compression technique.

Video is nearing its apex; sound is pretty much already there.

There's actually a maximum rate at which our senses can convey information to our brains; any use of data beyond that rate is literally impossible and anything carried beyond that is wasted. Even a full sensorium just isn't that much larger than what we already have. We are, after all, talking about technologies that are in the same ballpark as the maximum theoretical data density that human brains can have, and in practice the memristor storage is going to be much higher. It should not be surprising that it's very difficult to truly "use" all that storage.

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#116

Post by oh_teh_meows »

DelwinAmber wrote: post #60
Synaesthesia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but it has the potential to change our entire model of computing, and simplify it tremendously. The unification of storage and computing.

CPU's may end up looking more like GPU's with thousands of registers.

Compiler optimizations that are currently impeded because of register pressure can be enabled to its fullest extent, thereby increasing program speed even more. Compiler writers also get more breathing room to design better optimizations.

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#117

Post by noobermin »

valarauca1 wrote: post #88
figglesonrails wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't wait to see it: You wouldn't steal a Library of Congress...

The bigger problem is telecoms won't sell any bandwidth. So everything will have to shared via sneaker net.

As in shuffing around our terabytes of "illicit" storage by hiding terabyte thumbdrives in our sneakers?

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#119

Post by Touche »

valarauca1 wrote: post #90
swalsh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why he was downvoted, xml is a trade off for developer convenience. A trade off we were willing to make because we had disposable bits.

What was the trade off? Harder to parse files for less human readability?

What was the predecessor to xml that was easier to read?

Re: With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer

#120

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #87
figglesonrails wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unification of storage and computing...what does that even mean? I get that having nearly unlimited, fast, persistent storage would be awesome, but that's not a conceptual merging of storage and computing -- but I definitely agree about the simplification.

Well only one pool of data, no more registers, cache, hard drives etc. The storage will live next to the logic. What's more, memristors can act was logic units as well as storage, and do it interchangeably.

So, the program doesn't just run on the silicon it modifies the processor, you can increase buffers, add registers, modify the arithmetic units to use different algos and such like using a FPGA that can be adapted on the fly? You could execute a program by running it in place rather than streaming commands to a processing unit?!
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