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From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Subject: Re: Will Java VM kill Lisp?  How to fight it.
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In article <Stuecheli-0804972005180001@slip-123-35.ots.utexas.edu>,
Stuecheli@mail.utexas.edu (Jeff Stuecheli) wrote:

> > The current assumption is that fast necessarily means 'hot' (in temperature
> > and dissipation), although I can find nothing in my physics books that even
> > remotely implies this connection.  It's time to wipe the slate clean,
and get
> > some new ideas into this industry.
> 
> A CMOS gate dispates most of its power during switching.  This translates
> to charge moving into the off gate turning it on and vice versa.  Perhaps
> as switching speeds pass the GHz range, power dissapation will become a
> major design issue in even the high end "toaster" boxes.

Then it's time to come up with new ideas for gates.  There're people that
tie & untie Gordion knots, and there're people that cut through them.  We
need a few of the latter to clear the clutter.

Gates that 'dissipate' do so either because they are inherently dissipative --
e.g., AND, OR -- or because they are not decoupled from their environments
enough.  We already know how to avoid the first problem -- use 'reversible'
logic.  We now need to examine ways to decouple these gates from their
dissipative/decohering environments.  If this sounds like quantum computational
ideas, it should.  It's about time we stopped kidding ourselves about quanta,
and started using them instead of being abused by them.

I'd rather see $100 spent on 'killing a snake' rather than $1 spent on
'managing a snake'.
