Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.7.0.10 $; site uiucdcsp
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcsp!forbus
From: forbus@uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: Workstations vs Timeshare
Message-ID: <3500009@uiucdcsp>
Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 09:24:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsp.3500009
Posted: Sat Nov  9 09:24:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Nov-85 06:19:15 EST
References: <3528@utah-cs.UUCP>
Lines: 39
Nf-ID: #R:utah-cs.UUCP:3528:uiucdcsp:3500009:000:2368
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU!forbus    Nov  9 08:24:00 1985


1.  Time sharing systems are in trouble if TWO people are actually hacking.
Assuming that only one person in a community at a time is either debugging
or experimenting with an AI program at a time is assuming that that
community isn't really doing much research.  Implying that using a computer
more than that is just "hacking without thinking" (to paraphrase) does a
grave injustice to the experimental side of AI.  Far too often programs
have been run on only one example, if that, and part of the reason has
been lack of cycles.  Technology is fixing this situation, but not fast
enough for my taste.  The more time I and my students spend shoehorning
our programs onto processors that are too small (or too overcrowded),
the less time we are thinking about AI.  Consequently, I try to get my
students the best sources of cycles that money can buy (modulo the fact
that no funding agency will buy us several CRAY's to use as single-person
workstations, and we couldn't physically house them as well.  But then
again, with two supercomputer centers on campus....).  We STILL have to
shoehorn, but it takes a much smaller fraction of our time than people
who are struggling along on Apollos or Suns.

2.  8MB of memory sure will run faster than 4MB!  (If only someone would
second-source boards for Symbolics machines I'd upgrade all of ours
accordingly.)  However, how many people can afford 100-200MB of real memory
right now?  I've seen programs eat up that much quite often (not just
mine!).  Look, if you want to make a program that knows alot (or does some
deep analysis of something), then you have to put that knowledge somewhere.
8MB total address space may be fine for small applications programs, but not
for serious research.  Until memory gets VERY cheap, paging will be with us.



I think it's all pretty clear: Say a vax 780 is 500K.  A reasonable
3640 configuration is around 80K list (and if you are a university
you can do much, much better).  For 500K you can get 6 3640's at list
price (and at university discount a few extra on top of that), each of
which will outperform a stand-alone 780 running Common Lisp, not to
mention a 780 struggling along with 6 CL users....right now, the technology
and marketplace make workstations the only sensible choice for serious AI
research.  Tomorrow might be different, but that's how it seems to be
today.