THE CMOS END-POINT AND RELATED TOPICS IN COMPUTING

In 1954, the IBM 704 computer represented the state of the art with an add time of 36 mu s. Now we have add times of a few nanoseconds, repr esenting a speeding by a factor of approximately 10 000. One may get a n idea of what this means by noting that an algorithm which once took ten minutes can now be done 15 times per second. As a result, industri al applications can now be based on algorithms that were once of acade mic interest only-an achievement of vital significance in subjects suc h as pattern recognition.