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Megahertz's and the problem of the squared nail: a short article about speed and evolution.

The other day, I turned on my computer and became ready to do a few tasks on it.

Windows 10 booted, logged into my user account, launched the web browser and started working on my own stuff.

The whole process took about 4 minutes. By that time, my morning green tea was ready.

When I actually started working, a strange thought was coming into my mind: “We have more powerful computers, yet all the tasks and processes the computer does seem to take the same amount of time. Are computers really faster than before?”

The obvious answer to that question is “yes, they are becoming faster”. But then, I remember that I was able to boot into Windows 98, launch Internet Explorer and start sending emails in about the same amount of time. That, with a computer infinitesimally slower than what I have now. Then, how come that everything takes the same amount of time?

Well, everything has to be with the term “efficiency”. See? Before, computer CPU speed, memory, hard disk, all these sorts of things were really limited. They came in little amounts, so the only way around it was to make a program or software efficient, to make photos occupy less megabytes, create videos with some crazy compression. Basically, the software had to be adapted to the hardware, but it would be crazy to think otherwise. Yet, that is what happens nowadays.

The process seems to be the opposite now: it feels as if the hardware needs to catch up with the software. We came to a point where hardware is so powerful that even the most inefficient and poorly designed software can run smoothly. Yet, things take the same amount of time to do because even when the hardware increases its power by 2 times, the software is 2 times less efficient.

Moore's Law Predictions (12 Kb, PNG, 800x537)

Software developers create a certain program, and even if it runs slow due to poor design, they know that in 1 or 2 years a new and more powerful GPU will be able to compensate for that loss in efficiency.

Basically it is like buying a bigger hammer to fit a squared nail into a round hole. Just by bruteforce you will make it fit, but that will cost you money to buy a new hammer and more effort to lift that hammer.

The problems that arise from here are:

It wastes energy: You need more energy to run your computer. Although (general) computers are made with efficiency in mind, the power that your computer needs to visit a simple website is much more than what a Pentium 90 needs to visit a website. Long gone is the era where a full featured computer can run out of a couple of Watts. Earth's resources are limited, and specially fossil fuels. The whole planet's network cannot rely only at this moment on renewable energy.

It costs you more money: Each time you run a program or visit a website, your computer needs to work harder to compensate for the inefficient and bloated software. Whenever this happens, the CPU, Memory, Graphics Card and Hard Disk need more power or longer usage than when running efficient software. This translates into higher wattage consumption and that means that your electricity bill will be higher at the end of the month.

It damages your computer: The more intensively your computer works, the faster it will degrade. ICs (integrated circuits) will stop working sooner or later, even if not used, but intensive use and heat deteriorates them at exponential speed. As your computer needs to do extra effort to compensate for inefficient software, the degradation of the ICs in your computer will be faster.

It is not sustainable: We build new hardware instead of using current one to its fullest potential. Hardware from 20 years ago is pretty much capable of doing the same tasks we do now. The issue is that inefficient software assumes that hardware will simply become more powerful, so all the possibilities of the current hardware are not exploited. For example, a Commodore 64 when used to its maximum potential, can create amazing music and graphics that seemed to be impossible. As new hardware needs to be manufactured to support the software, old computers and components become obsolete and worthless in a couple of years. Not only is the disposal of huge amounts of computers and components a serious problem, but also the manufacturing of new computers is environmentally harmful.

Commodore 64 computer (8.85 Kb, PNG, 800x409)

The question is: do we need to buy yet an even bigger hammer, or should we just create a round nail to fit into our round hole?