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To: Paul Engel who wrote (131257)	3/30/2001 12:02:26 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, die size comparison history posted by a guy on The Motley Fool who seems to know a lot about Intel. Not sure if the term "die shrink" applies in all cases though (all new process like --> 0.13 is called...?). boards.fool.com Tony

To: Paul Engel who wrote (131257)	3/30/2001 12:04:48 AM
From: ericneu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Did your Compaq M700 come initially with Windows 2000 Pro - or was that too upgraded from an earlier OS ? --- It came with Windows 2000 Pro. Other than my son's machine, I haven't used Win9x in two years or more. - Eric

To: Paul Engel who wrote (131257)	3/30/2001 12:06:33 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Paul, could you comment on this FPGA technology? Specifically, do you think it's viable, and who leads this effort? Thanks, Mike _____________________________________________ NASA's new supercomp sits on a desktop By: Thomas C Greene in Washington Posted: 29/03/2001 at 18:12 GMT theregister.co.uk Supercomputers are bigger than the average person's holiday cottage, draw enough juice to run a small factory, and require industrial refrigeration units to prevent them cooking themselves, right? Not necessarily. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has taken delivery of a desktop-sized supercomputer which draws no more power than a hair dryer, based on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology instead of a CPU. FPGA chips can reconfigure themselves hundreds or thousands of times a second, making it possible for numerous applications to run simultaneously. Assuming it actually works as advertised, this setup leapfrogs over Moore's Law, yielding a desktop box with 1000 times the power of one running on a CPU. The power boost comes from the ability of an FPGA array to maximize the use of transistors. A CPU is designed to handle many different sorts of tasks, so only a fraction of its transistors is in use at any given time. An FPGA array, by contrast, can dedicate as many of its transistors as needed for a task on the fly. NASA's Langley Research Center in suburban Virginia is currently in possession of a HAL (what else would they call it?) "hypercomputer" from Utah-based outfit Star Bridge Systems. Reg reader Jeffrey George reckons "hypercomputer" should be spelt "HypeOurComputer," after touring the notably fact-light Star Bridge Web site. Additionally, reader Clark Smith seriously doubts that FPGA chips can reconfigure themselves "thousands of times a second," as a NASA press release claims. "The fastest FPGA currently operates in the 300MHz range," he writes. No doubt we'll hear more about this faster-than-light marvel in the near future. Other HAL customers include the US Department of Defense (DoD), several telecommunications corporations and some Hollywood special-effects shops. No word yet on how well the gizmo works, if at all; but if it's a total bust we have every confidence that Intel will promptly let us know. ®