[TUHS] Origins of the frame buffer device

[Norman Wilson]

Rob Pike:

  As observed by many others, there is far more grunt today in the graphics
  card than the CPU, which in Sutherland's timeline would mean it was time to
  push that power back to the CPU. But no.

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Indeed.  Instead we are evolving ways to use graphics cards to
do general-purpose computation, and assembling systems that have
many graphics cards not to do graphics but to crunch numbers.

My current responsibilities include running a small stable of
those, because certain computer-science courses consider it
important that students learn to use them.

I sometimes wonder when someone will think of adding secondary
storage and memory management and network interfaces to GPUs,
and push to run Windows on them.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON