> I believe that like the Space X-prize, the idea is that you can win the p=
rize AND sell the product (for as much as you're able to make.)
>
> Having reached the age where I undergo entirely too many medical tests an=
d procedures, it is sort of glaringly obvious how poorly technology has pen=
etrated into the average doctor's office.=20
There is certainly a time lag with medical technology because of=20
certification requirements :(
>  I mean, ultrasound machines with FLOPPY drives?  Really?
>  =20
Most equipment has far longer life cycles than your typical PC. So it's=20
not unusual to find PCs that seem archaic driving expensive equipment. I=20
know that we have a milling machine at uni that is driven by a pentium=20
(the original, not one of the later things marketed under the name) and=20
it was only upgraded from a 486 because the 486 board stopped working=20
right. The important cards are ISA and the machine runs windows 3.x (not=20
sure the exact version offhand). We have a drilling machine controlled=20
serially from a dos machine (which was an upgrade, the machine was=20
originally meant to be driven from a paper tape reader).  I haven't seen=20
them personally but i've head of some experiments still being driven by=20
BBC micros.

We also have lots of fairly modern osciloscopes with floppy drives.=20
Afaict it's only in the last few years that tektronix and agilent have=20
switched to USB memory sticks as media for saving your traces on.

In general expensive equipment is kept until either it dies and can't be=20
repaired or there is a need for more performance and there is nowhere to=20
demote it to. Noones going to replace expensive equipment just because=20
the computer that drives it seems a bit archaic.
> Another example is the CAT scan.  Computationally intensive.  So you'd th=
ink that maybe Moore's law had come into play and made these things common =
and cheap?=20
Yes it's computationally expensive but as I understand it the main cost=20
is in the prescision sensing (the inverse radon transform is very=20
unstable so you need very good measurements to produce acceptable=20
output) and the certification requirements (it's firing x-rays through a=20
human body in nontrivial ammounts...), not in the computing hardware.



--=20
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