News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The fifth hyperfactorial: 5⁵ × 4⁴ × 3³ × 2² × 1¹ millisec... by letlambda on Sunday December 10, 2017 @02:43AM (#15890439)
Which leads to my favorite way to think about it. One foot per clock tick of a 1Ghz processor.
Re:The fifth hyperfactorial: 5⁵ × 4⁴ × 3³ × 2² × 1¹ millisec... by stephengillie on Sunday December 10, 2017 @10:09AM (#15891709)
Does this mean circuits in a 1 GHz processor can't be longer than 12 inches?
Re:The fifth hyperfactorial: 5⁵ × 4⁴ × 3³ × 2² × 1¹ millisec... by todd8 on Sunday December 10, 2017 @11:36AM (#15892131)
No information can travel more than a foot (11.8 inches) in a nanosecond. Grace Hopper used to give a talk where she held up a piece of wire that was that long to illustrate this limitation. [1]

The first Cray computers were designed in a cylindrical shape to keep the signal wires short. [2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1

Re:The fifth hyperfactorial: 5⁵ × 4⁴ × 3³ × 2² × 1¹ millisec... by linker3000 on Sunday December 10, 2017 @06:50PM (#15894190)
'twas an annular shape!

Ok..the backplane was annular