Soren Kristensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> types:
> I'm not claiming any specific numbers, just that the chip I'm using, the
> lowest end hi/fn 7951, is said to be faster than your typical highend
> >1Ghz CPU doing 3-DES.
[ ... ]
> I'm only talking about this specific case of doing computing intensive
> encryption.... As a hardware designer, I'm very well aware of all the
> different bottlenecks.
The crucial bottleneck for this kind of thing is the doubling
time. Unless your special purpose hardware doubles in speed as fast or
faster than general purpose CPUs, then eventually it's going to be
slow, then expensive, and finally dead. Given the two doubling times
and current relative speed, you can easily predict when general
purpose CPUs well be faster and then when they will be more cost
effective. At that point, your special purpose hardware is dead, and
just waiting for the rest of the world to realize it.
Given the predicted lifetime, you can make a rational decision about
whether it's worth the effort to support the hardware.
<mike
--
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