Tuesday, May 17, 2005

1 + 1 NE 2

I was thinking very lazily (as I usually do) about the dual CPU in a PC question, and so did a web search, coming up with this site, where thirty seconds reading reminded me of something I knew once, and should have remembered:

You can have a zillion CPUs, but if the software isn't coded to multitask (not preemptive or priority-based dispatch on one CPU but simultanous symetrical execution on multiple CPUs), all but one of those CPUs will be sitting there eating pretzels and watching Oprah while the one is working so hard, paint is bleeding from the edges.

Oh. Yeah. Operating system. Gotcha.

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