Parallel Computing and Parallelism
  01/18/2001 03:55:00pm Albuquerque, Nm
  By Dustin D. Brand; Owner AMO

Parallel Processing and Parallelism present new hope for the future of computing.   The earliest reference to the definition of MultiProcessing is 1961. Parallel Computing dates back to the late 1940's, but Parallelism Computing is new to the last decade.

  Parallel Computers have existed for nearly 11 Years, which means simply more than 1 CPU is running on the same computer. Intel the worlds largest MicroProcessor manufacturer has been building Dual CPU or parallel processor systems since the x386 architechture. Actually, I had the opportunity to meet with Breault Research Organization, Inc who fixed the Hubble Space Telescope's Lens back when I was 16. At the time the Hubble was running a dual 386 Processor system by Intel, since upgraded in 1998 to a 486.

  In fact, Dual x386 Processors have even made there way into the Nokia 9000i Communicator Mobile Phone. Now Parallel Computing is most common for Web Servers. Microsoft recently broke the internet2 land speed records for Data Transfer over the internet, and did so with 2 Servers, each running Dual Pentium III 733Mhz CPUS. Microsoft also broke the long held Transactions Per Second record held by IBM with a much larger 32 Server each with 8 processors configuration.

  64 Bit computing is around the horizon with Intel's Itanium Processor, their first 64 Bit Processor. The IA-64 Architechture presents the entrance for anticiParallelism.

  AnticiParallelism in computing terms is the abilty of the Computers CPU and Software to anticipate the computers next insrtuction, or needed instructions and process them beforehand. Currently, unless you're running Never Offline(SM) or a web server, your computer sits there idle for a long time. It takes a long time to boot, even though now Windows 2000 and Windows ME boot faster. It takes a long time to shut your system do, again unless you're running Never Offline(SM) or a Web Server, you're probably shutting down your computer. Anticiparallelism would anticipate the instructions needed before you boot, and before you shutdown, and before you run your favorite application, and execute the instructions before hand. Anticiparallelism in software also anticipates what you need to do next, or what you're most likely to do next, which may seem scary, but this is really where computing is heading. Anticiparallelism combined with Magnetic RAM are sure to be here in less than a decade.

  Actually, Multiprocessing, or Multitasking has taken on a new light. Preemptive Multitasking allows you to do exactly that. Apple Computer which has had a dismal year is scrapping their old Operating System and planning their new release Mac OS X for March 24, 2001. Mac OS X is based on Unix which was created by AT&T over 30 Years ago and is what spawned Linux and many other flavors of Unix. Windows 2000 on the other hand is based on NT and NT is less than 10 years old.

  Whatever the Operating System, the CPU's will go from 32 bit to 64 with Intels launch of Itanium (suited for servers, not average computer users), and the OS's of the future like Microsoft's Whistler will slowly reach towards anticiparallelism.

  As a Software Engineer myself, Never Offline(SM) already utilizes many aspects of the future of computing.

  Currently Parallel computing is limited to HIGH-END Servers and OS's like Windows NT or 2000, and High-End flavors of Commercial Unix. Parallel computing has not yet hit the Consumer Operating System like Windows 95, 98, or ME, however Microsoft is mergeing the code bases of Windows 2000 and Windows ME to make Whistler. Whistler will bring parallel computing to the Consumer.