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<TITLE>RE: [SIGCIS-Members] Smart phones vs. classic computers</TITLE>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I think you are on safe ground with both claims</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, based on some cursory research I did to support similar language in the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I> <FONT FACE="Calibri">New History</FONT></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I><FONT FACE="Calibri"> of Modern Computing</FONT></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ENIAC had a writable electronic memory of 200 decimal digits and could do a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">round 300 multiplications a second – caveats apply pre/post conversion to the modern code paradigm and which version of th</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">e setup was being used.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">(</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Multiplication time is a better measure of performance than addition time, and also avoids making assumptions about parallelism under ENIAC’s original control mode).</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> That’s why ENIAC quickly became a yardstick to which any other system could be flatteringly compared</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">The faster cellphone IIRC is an iPhone 11 based on the Apple A13 Bionic system on chip.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">According to</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">context-less numbers fetched with a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> quick Google that does 154.9 GigaFLOPS</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> which is around a thousand times more powerful than the 160 MegaFLOPS of the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">C</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ray 1. Now there are probably a lot of footnotes about</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">sustaining peak</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> performance, assumptions about</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">multithreading</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> or vectorization, etc. but when there are three zeros to play with I can’t imagine them overcoming the gap.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">The interesting question is how many year you would have to go back in time for the iPhone to be the world’s most powerful supercomputer. I don’t think we did that, but we did</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">try something similar to</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">make the point that graphics cards ar</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">e where processing power is concentrated these days, to the extent that bitcoin mining and supercomputers are both being built from them.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> So if anyone who knows more about these things would like to fact-check the following paragraph I’d appreciate it:</FONT></SPAN></P>
<UL DIR=LTR><UL DIR=LTR>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">A desktop computer with eighteen process cores on a single giant chip brings an impressive degree of parallel processing. Compared to the latest graphics hardware, though, that is barely parallel at all. As of early-2019, Nvidia lists its flagship Titan V graphics card for a price might give pause to even the most dedicated gamer: $3,000. Yet given its 5,750 processor cores it could also be viewed as an extremely affordable alternative to a large building stuffed with mainframes. Nvidia markets the Titan for “deep learning” applications, claiming a throughput that would have made it the world’s most powerful supercomputer just fifteen years earlier. Similar chips drive the world’s fastest supercomputers, including the Titan system that Cray built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2012 and its successor, the Summit computer delivered by IBM in 2018. The later holds 9,216 IBM Power processors and 27,648 Nvidia chips each similar to the one on the Titan V card. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
</UL></UL>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A NAME=""><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I’m trying to hedge bets a little with “claiming a throughput.” And</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">of course this is out of date already, and will be further out of date next year when the book appears.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> So</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> we</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> should at</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">least switch to the past tense.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Best wishes,</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Tom</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><FONT FACE="Calibri">From:</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B> <FONT FACE="Calibri">On Behalf Of</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">PETER ECKSTEIN<BR>
</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><FONT FACE="Calibri">Sent:</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> Wednesday, August 26, 2020 12:44 PM<BR>
</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><FONT FACE="Calibri">To:</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> SIG Computer <members@sigcis.org><BR>
</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><FONT FACE="Calibri">Subject:</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> [SIGCIS-Members] Smart phones vs. classic computers</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#333333" FACE="Helvetica">After many years, I am completing work on the manuscript of book on the early lives of America’s computer hardware pioneers. To put things in a bit of historical perspective, I have included in the conclusions a reference to today’s smart phones as having a “processing capacity that dwarfs that of ENIAC or even the fastest of Seymour Cray’s supercomputers.” (Mauchly, Eckert, and Cray are three of my subjects) </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#333333" FACE="Helvetica">Before I try to pass that along as fact, I would appreciate some expert opinion. Is it true? Is “processing capacity” the best measure of the contrast? Wouldn’t it also be true of storage capacity? </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#333333" FACE="Helvetica">Peter Eckstein </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#333333" FACE="Helvetica">Ann Arbor Michigan </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT COLOR="#333333" FACE="Helvetica"> </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
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