Rebuilding the way we compute.

I posted this on the VW forum in the computer section. I figured I could get some good answers here as well.

So are computers like gasoline engines? We're dependent on a technology that was created so many years ago that has evolved, but will it ever really evolve unless it's redesigned from the ground up?

Will that ever happen because the entire world is dependent on the current way of things and it would take a massive amount of man power and money to change something like that?

I'm talking about binary. Computers think in 1's and 0's, electronic pulses of on and off, just like they've done for the longest time. What if some one developed a chip that could process information in a different way that made it 100x's more effecient and faster.

Would it be like an alternate renewable energy source? One that wouldn't ever catch on despite it's superior performance based on the fact that the world currently is doing it one way and to utilize it, software would have to be built from the ground up?

I was looking at several lines of binary that was some where on the web and thought about how outdated it is and what if there was another way of doing things. Kind of like the internal combustion engine; you can revamp and evolve the engine to make it more powerful and more effecient, but it's still running on a technology that was created a long time ago that has alternatives that could rival it in performance and effeciency.

Awhile back, I read about a computer whose processor was composed of the nervous system of leeches. Yes... leeches. I wonder how far that has come along since.

it's really pretty hard to get electronics to be in something other than an on or off state.

Far as I know we will be with binary for as long as we live. The only possible changes that are possible to increase the stock clock speed is either DNA based CPUs or keep trucking on with the advancement of nanotech.

As far as i know the main limits to a computers speed or any electronic device are , power, heat and the speed at which light travels. I mean if most electronics rely on metal parts (think capacitors, diodes, resistors,, batteries, the traces on pcb's, etc) to relay the binary codes, they are limited to the speed at which the tiny eletrons can bump into eachother. There are ways round that though. Change the size of the electrical path, change the type of metals used, throw more power at it. But then you run into a problem with heat build up. So, then we cool the machine down with heat sinks and water cooling jackets etc. The thing is we always will run into those two problems with speed of electrons and heat. Fiber optic wires allow for fast tranmission of data but as far as i know you cant make an overly complicated ic (integrated circuit) ot of them. Plus besides the physical limitations of our current systems, you'd have to have programing to match. And in the end, a balance of price and features win out. I'm sure if anyone wants to pony up billions apon billions for a personal super computer they could. Ok thats just my long two cents on this!

Dysfunction said:

it's really pretty hard to get electronics to be in something other than an on or off state.

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What if there's something besides electronics? Organic based computers? Or type of Chip that deals with voltages rather than just on or off where instead of 1 & 0, it changes to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9 making it that much faster to add numbers rather than having to string together a ton of binary numbers to get the answer to 1 + 1.

Currently you need logic to deal with voltage fluctuation, which goes back to on/off.. or is you prefer 1/0. As far as I can tell you're talking a huge step in electronics, well beyond the natural projection of Moore's Law. So I don't think we'll see that in the near future. Things will get smaller and smaller, and that's where we'll see increase in performance.. density

Just as an example of density, multi-core cpu's.