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From: mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us
Subject: Re: Happy Birthday, HAL 9000!
Message-ID: <1997Jan23.024609.632@mole-end.matawan.nj.us>
Organization: :
References: <32D96F7C.357E@tale.com> <5bc05i$lcu@hole.sdsu.edu> <5btnri$bta@News.Dal.Ca>
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 02:46:09 GMT
Lines: 32
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:43699 sci.space.shuttle:53643

In article <5btnri$bta@News.Dal.Ca>, af380@chebucto.ns.ca (Norman L. DeForest) writes:
> Michael P. Walsh (mp_walsh@pacbell.net) wrote:
> [snip]
> 
> : However, after registering this complaint about your comment about
> : Clarke, I am somewhat in agreement with you.  One the places that
> : Clarke has not done very well at is in predicting advances in
> : computer technology.  If you read one of his properly highly acclaimed
> : short stories "Superiority" he has a computer system much like those
> : in use today filling a space battleship with excess parts carried in
> : an accompanying space liner.
> 
> This is not as far-fetched as it might seem at first glance.  
> Semiconductors are quite sensitive to certain types of radiation and 
> space is filled with radiation.  Vacuum tubes have a problem on Earth of 
> maintaining their vacuum.  In space you have cubic kilometres of it.
> 
> It is quite possible that, if semiconductor computers were used on space 
> battleships, one possible weapon would be one that sent out a burst of 
> radiation that would fry the enemy's computers.  Vacuum tubes are 
> relatively immune to this kind of damage and might be preferable.  So 
> what if they take up more space?  You've got LOTS of space around you.
> Reliability in battle might be the deciding factor.

Yes, but you lose in propagation delay from module to module.
Why do you think they are pushing to get semiconductor features down to
the size of a few dozen atoms?

-- 
 (This man's opinions are his own.)
 From mole-end				Mark Terribile
 mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us, Somewhere in Matawan, NJ
