NDLI: Computer perspectives: the bandwidth famine

Content Provider	ACM Digital Library
Author	Wilkes, Maurice V.
Abstract	A number of years ago I visited a young and successful computer company and was given a tour of the facilities by one of the directors. We passed offices in which people were working at computer terminals; I was told they constituted the accounts department. A little further on we came to the software department; here people were also using terminals. “Now,” said my host, “I will show you the hardware department.” To my surprise, instead of the oscilloscopes and waveform analyzers that I had expected to find, I saw more computer terminals. This was a sign of the times.Today, the designer of printed circuit boards such as those intended to be plugged into PCs, has a great variety of software tools from which to choose: programs for layout and routing; programs for checking that the design rules have been followed correctly; logic simulators for checking that the design is functionally correct; and more elaborate simulators for checking the timing. These tools make it possible to produce a working prototype without performing any experimental work on a laboratory bench.In the dark ages of electronics, the debugging of circuits was carried out using experimental versions made by screwing the components down on a piece of wood and connecting them. The behavior of the circuit was checked using an oscilloscope. These experimental versions were known as breadboards, because someone had compared them to those boards on which bread was sliced. The wooden board has been obsolete for years, but the term has survived. A modern version of the breadboard (still used occasionally) is the wire-wrapped prototype. It is, however, costly in time and money and the effort spent on it does not advance the physical design of the final product. Moreover, in certain respects, particularly as regards electrical interference and cross talk, the wire-wrapped version may give misleading information.
Starting Page	19
Ending Page	21
Page Count	3
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00010782 15577317
DOI	10.1145/79173.79174
Journal	Communications of the ACM (CACM)
Volume Number	33
Issue Number	8
Language	English
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Publisher Date	2005-08-01
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Computer Science Computer Science

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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