"Since 1954, the raw speed of computers, as measured by the time it takes to do an addition, increased by a factor of 10,000. That means an algorithm that once took 10 minutes to perform can now be done 15 times a second. Students sometimes ask my advice on how to get rich. The best advice I can give them is to dig up some old algorithm that once took forever, program it for a modern workstation, form a startup to market it and then get rich."
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People from EnglandComputer scientists from the United KingdomTuring Award laureatesUniversity of Cambridge alumniFellows of the Royal Society
Original Language: English
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Sources
"A Half Century of Surprises", in Talking Back to the Machine: Computers and Human Aspiration‎, Ed. Peter J. Denning, Springer, 1999, , p. 112
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes
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Maurice Wilkes
Maurice Vincent Wilkes (June 26, 1913 – November 29, 2010) was a pioneering British computer scientist and winner of the 1967 Turing Award. He developed the first stored-program computer in 1949, and invented the concept of microprogramming in 1951. He is also credited with originating the fundamental software concepts of symbolic labels, macros, and subroutine libraries.
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