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High-Tech Transfers To China Continue
Insight Magazine ^
| July 29, 2002
| Zoli Simon
Posted on 07/09/2002 12:41:37 PM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
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To: Stand Watch Listen
The consequences of permitting faster computer hardware into the hands of our enemies can be illustrated by the value of one our own military software projects. The overall package contains 1 million lines of Fortran and 1 million lines of C. In the mid 80s, the software ran on a Burroughs mainframe that filled the computer room. Execution of all the steps to create the final product took about 18 months. The code was migrated to a DG minicomputer. The same steps could be accomplished in 6 months. When I came to the program in 1991, the new target hardware was a Sun 640/MP with 16 GB of disk. The staff was inexperienced in UNIX, but their first pass at a port did the same work in 3 1/2 weeks. After pushing a software improvement process and a bit of training, the same work could be done in 36 hours. An individual pilot could get specific sortie work done in 15 minutes on a SPARC laptop. That was the state of the art by January 1993. It is now 10 years later. CPUs are 50 times faster now. Most desktop machines have 3 times as much disk as the 640/MP had. Assuming no improvement at all in the software, the execution time for the whole process would be under 1 hour today. The limiting factor now is the how fast the human users of the system can input the updated parameters.
61
posted on
01/04/2003 5:40:54 PM PST
by
Myrddin
To: Mudboy Slim
Thought you'd find it of interest.
To: WatchNKorea
You're most welcome!
To: goldilucky; Native American Female Vet; Mudboy Slim; backhoe; flamefront; Registered; jokar; ...
bttt
To: Myrddin
"...the execution time for the whole process would be under 1 hour today." bttt
To: goldilucky
Thanks. I thought my China essay had gone down the memory hole at FR.
66
posted on
01/06/2003 12:22:22 PM PST
by
Publius
To: Stand Watch Listen; Jeff Head
Sounds like we're really walkin' into it!
Dragon's Fury BUMP!
To: Publius
That's why when you read my post #52 you'll see I'm in the know of what's going on.
To: Publius
BTTT
To: goldilucky
BTTT
To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BTTT
To: Mulder
BTTT
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