Effects of large arrays on machine organization and hardware/software tradeoffs

Abstract

From the early days of electronic computers until the present, a period of over 20 years, electronic and magnetic hardware for mechanizing logical functions and storage in the central processor portion of a computer system have been extremely expensive. Although these costs have been dropping steadily in terms of the cost per component, increases in the complexity and capacity of central processors have tended to keep pace with decreases in hardware costs. Hence, reductions in hardware costs to date have been reflected primarily in increased performance and capability rather than reduced cost. However, developments presently underway in batch-fabricated technologies will provide such significantly lower hardware costs in the central processor that it will not be possible to maintain a system balance from the standpoint of cost and reliability. If properly used, large-scale integrated-circuit arrays in particular will provide digital logic and control functions at such sharply reduced costs and increased reliability that the central processor will tend to become an almost negligible part of the system from the standpoint of both cost and reliability. The dominant factors in systems cost will be software and electromechanical mass storage and input/output devices.