Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Moore's Law, Quotations and Research
In an article dated June, but published today Don Burleson is at it again - enlisting big names in the aid of advertising books. This time the name is Charles Phillips, president of Oracle Corp. The quote from a search Oracle article "Moore's Law is coming to an end ... we are not seeing the same price performance improvement we have seen in the past," Phillips said.
The 18-month rule where chip performance would double and prices would drop no longer applies as strictly as it once did, Phillips continued.
This seemed a little odd to me. First I didn't recall that Moore's Law had anything to do with price/performance - just number of transistors on a chip. Second, I just wanted to know what Charles Phillips had said in the quote that was missed out. Was it like those movie posters that read 'Brad Pitt's performance is amazing...' when the review stated 'Brad Pitt's performance is amazing, but can't save this turkey'.
So what does Moore's Law actually say? It turns out I was incorrect. You can read it here, here or here. In summary Moore suggested that over the period 1965-1975 the complexity of integrated circuits as measured by the number of components they contained would double every year. So it was a, remarkably prescient, piece of Crystal Ball gazing. Just nothing to do with pricing. (though costs get a mention).
as to my second concern, well who knows - Phillips keynote isn't available on-line, why open-source keynotes aren't openly available is anyones guess - it is, I suppose, just possible that he was joining the long line of people who have pronounced exponential growth in computing power dead for a while, more likely it seems to me he was promoting Oracle products to a fairly important audience, using a common misconception of a 'Law' is a handy rhetorical device here.
But back to this new article.
It quotes without noting the inaccuracy a misstating of moores law - googling moores law takes less than a second to determine the accuracy of the quote
It repeats a quote from a secondary source without any apparent means of determining its accuracy
It uses a chart with no vertical scale - who knows it could be frames/sec for the Adventure text game
Perhaps one is intended to draw the conclusion that the book being promoted is equally well researched and illustrated.
2 Comments
The 18-month rule where chip performance would double and prices would drop no longer applies as strictly as it once did, Phillips continued.
This seemed a little odd to me. First I didn't recall that Moore's Law had anything to do with price/performance - just number of transistors on a chip. Second, I just wanted to know what Charles Phillips had said in the quote that was missed out. Was it like those movie posters that read 'Brad Pitt's performance is amazing...' when the review stated 'Brad Pitt's performance is amazing, but can't save this turkey'.
So what does Moore's Law actually say? It turns out I was incorrect. You can read it here, here or here. In summary Moore suggested that over the period 1965-1975 the complexity of integrated circuits as measured by the number of components they contained would double every year. So it was a, remarkably prescient, piece of Crystal Ball gazing. Just nothing to do with pricing. (though costs get a mention).
as to my second concern, well who knows - Phillips keynote isn't available on-line, why open-source keynotes aren't openly available is anyones guess - it is, I suppose, just possible that he was joining the long line of people who have pronounced exponential growth in computing power dead for a while, more likely it seems to me he was promoting Oracle products to a fairly important audience, using a common misconception of a 'Law' is a handy rhetorical device here.
But back to this new article.
Perhaps one is intended to draw the conclusion that the book being promoted is equally well researched and illustrated.
2 Comments:
This law rather frequently is cited this way (double processor power each 18 month), even if Moore has never said that (according to wikipedia he has said every two years) the industry and Intel has adjusted (corrected) this law to state 18 month instead of 24 months. So I think that C. Philips was referencing this corrected law, which is still called Moore's law, but wasn't stated by Moore. So it is not a mistake to quote this law without saying that Moore has actually never said this. It is one of the formulations of the law.
It is all well written in the Wikipedia article that you have mentioned.
From the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors on integrated circuits (a rough measure of computer processing power) every 18 months.
It is all well written in the Wikipedia article that you have mentioned.
From the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors on integrated circuits (a rough measure of computer processing power) every 18 months.
# posted by 
: 7:05 AM, September 07, 2005
: 7:05 AM, September 07, 2005
"By Jack Loftus, News Writer
10 Aug 2020 | SearchEnterpriseLinux.com "
Must think he is Kurt "I've come unstuck in time" Vonnegut
"When we talk to vendors about standard bodies,"
I'll take the Model A-602 Jennifer, please.
"Moore’s Law states that computer processors will continually fall while speed improves"
Fudd's law, of course.
Jeez, maybe people shouldn't write the way they talk.
Post a Comment
10 Aug 2020 | SearchEnterpriseLinux.com "
Must think he is Kurt "I've come unstuck in time" Vonnegut
"When we talk to vendors about standard bodies,"
I'll take the Model A-602 Jennifer, please.
"Moore’s Law states that computer processors will continually fall while speed improves"
Fudd's law, of course.
Jeez, maybe people shouldn't write the way they talk.
