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vannevar

vannevar


  2  definitions  found 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [jargon]: 
 
  vannevar  /van'*-var/  n.  A  bogus  technological  prediction  or  a 
  foredoomed  engineering  concept,  esp.  one  that  fails  by  implicitly 
  assuming  that  technologies  develop  linearly,  incrementally  and  in 
  isolation  from  one  another  when  in  fact  the  learning  curve  tends  to  be 
  highly  nonlinear,  revolutions  are  common,  and  competition  is  the  rule 
  The  prototype  was  Vannevar  Bush's  prediction  of  `electronic  brains' 
  the  size  of  the  Empire  State  Building  with  a  Niagara-Falls-equivalent 
  cooling  system  for  their  tubes  and  relays,  a  prediction  made  at  a  time 
  when  the  semiconductor  effect  had  already  been  demonstrated.  Other  famous 
  vannevars  have  included  magnetic-bubble  memory,  LISP  machines,  {videotex}, 
  and  a  paper  from  the  late  1970s  that  computed  a  purported  ultimate  limit 
  on  areal  density  for  ICs  that  was  in  fact  less  than  the  routine  densities 
  of  5  years  later 
 
 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  vannevar 
 
    /van'*-var/  A  bogus  technological  prediction  or  a 
  foredoomed  engineering  concept,  especially  one  that  fails  by 
  implicitly  assuming  that  technologies  develop  linearly, 
  incrementally  and  in  isolation  from  one  another  when  in  fact 
  the  learning  curve  tends  to  be  highly  nonlinear,  revolutions 
  are  common,  and  competition  is  the  rule  The  prototype  was 
  Vannevar  Bush's  prediction  of  "electronic  brains"  the  size  of 
  the  Empire  State  Building  with  a  Niagara-Falls-equivalent 
  cooling  system  for  their  tubes  and  relays,  a  prediction  made 
  at  a  time  when  the  semiconductor  effect  had  already  been 
  demonstrated.  Other  famous  vannevars  have  included 
  {magnetic-bubble  memory},  {LISP  machines},  {videotex},  and  a 
  paper  from  the  late  1970s  that  computed  a  purported  ultimate 
  limit  on  areal  density  for  {integrated  circuits}  that  was  in 
  fact  less  than  the  routine  densities  of  5  years  later 
 
  [{Jargon  File}] 
 
  (2000-02-29)