|
So a 38 gram OPi board and a 78,000 gram power supply...
So we're on our way ...
OK, so what is a hairy smoking golfball?
The idea of a hairy smoking golfballl was proposed long ago by IBM engineers who were trying to predict the future of computer development. Looking back at the development of computers from that point in time, it was noticed that the size of the CPU was getting smaller while the computing "horsepower" of the machines was increasing. By inventing processes that would allow the device to become smaller, many of the problems of early designs caused by the laws of physics involving transmission of electrical current through conductors in large computers were being overcome. As a result,engineering aimed at reducing the size of components in order to take advantage of the better performance of smaller devices.
The theory of the hairy smoking golfball is as follows:
First, the engineers decided that the ideal size of the CPU would be about the size of a golfball. The diameter of a golf ball is such that a computer built to that size would have conductors that were very short, which in turn would allow faster speed and more circuits in a smaller space.
Second, they considered that the golfball would be hairy because of the many hundreds of wires connecting the device to the outside world, such as for power and I/O devices.
Third, they observed that the device would be smoking because it would be disappating a very large amount of heat in a very small space.
It turns out that the engineers of long ago were right. Consider the current Intel Pentium 4 processor. The die at the center of the device is much smaller than a golfball. The device has hundreds of pins provided to attach it to its socket and through this to the power and I/O devices involved. And, one of the major problems of Pentium devices is the heat they create. Most PC's today have a cooling fan mounted right on the processor. |
|