vannevar

2 definitions found

vannevar - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  vannevar
  
     <jargon> /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)
  

vannevar - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  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.